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Home  »  Poetry: A Magazine of Verse  »  Arthur Waley, trans.

Harriet Monroe, ed. (1860–1936). The New Poetry: An Anthology. 1917.

Shang Ya

Arthur Waley, trans.

From “Chinese Poems”

Anonymous—First Century B. C.

SHANG YA!

I want to be your friend

For ever and ever without break or decay.

When the hills are all flat

And the rivers are all dry,

When it lightnings and thunders in winter,

When it rains and snows in summer,

When Heaven and Earth mingle—

Not till then will I part from you.