Drinking Alone by Moonlight

 

 

 By Li Po

 

A cup of wine, under the flowering trees;
I drink alone, for no friend is near.
Raising my cup, I beckon the bright moon,...
For her, with my shadow, will make three men.

The moon, alas, is no drinker of wine;

Listless, my shadow creeps about at my side.
Yet with the moon as friend and the shadow as slave
I must make merry before the Spring is spent.

 

To the songs I sing the moon flickers her beams;
In the dance, I weave my shadow tangles and breaks.
While we were sober, three shared the fun;

 

Now we are drunk; each goes his way.
May we long share our odd, inanimate feast,
And meet at last on the Cloudy River of the sky.