Sonnet 21

There were the days of bitter silent thought
The moon summoned up sadness in the past
The white wave sighed the far heart that I sought
And being also yellow by time’s waste

Then I poured a pain that forget to flow
For precious love not the treasure of night
And weep a boundless long miss moldy woe,
Moaning about you a vanish’d sight:

Then can I grieve at grievances foregone,
And heavily from woe to woe tell o’er
The sad account of fore-bemoaned moan,
Which I new pay as if not paid before.

But if the while I think on thee, dear friend,
All losses are restored and sorrows end.


In Tien Giang province, 2023