Xiang Jian Huan (Li Yu) 相見歡 (李煜)

This, essentially, is the lyric written for a song named Xiang Jiang Huan (Happy to See Each Other) 相見歡. The song also had several aliases: Wu Ye Ti (Crows Cawing at Night) 烏夜啼, Qiu Ye Yue (Autumn Night with Moon) 秋夜月, and Shang Xi Lou (Climb the West Tower) 上西樓.

無言獨上西樓，月如鉤。
寂寞梧桐深院鎖清秋。
剪不斷，理還亂，是離愁。
別是一般滋味在心頭。

"A Joyful Rendezvous"

In seclusion I ascend the west tower in silence, a hook of a new moon hangs above. On guarded grounds lonesome phoenix trees apprehend the works of a brisk fall. Sever not, reasons fail, it is parting sorrow but sweet it is not. It is a taste of something else on the hook, on my mind it frees me not.

(by Bety Tseng 曾培慈 March 1, 2011)

"Autumn Sentiments"

Alone, in silence, up the west tower I go: The moon is like a bow, The autumn leaves of that desolate tree, the phoenix, locked deep in the courtyard below. O threads I can’t cut through, In a tangle I can’t undo! Such is my parting sorrow--- A taste that tastes so odd, so strange that my heart nev’r ever before did know.

(by Andrew W.F. Wong 黃宏發 11/27/2008)

"Young Moon Autumn Night"

In lonesome quietude I climb the West Tower, the young moon hangs high; the deformed moon. A lone parasol tree stands in the desolate courtyard down below; it conjured up the gloomy autumn and wont' let go. Inseverable and uncombable, a cocoon of an exile's sorrow. A state of mind to fathom no one else is able.

(by me, 9/15/2016)