ENG
Half a life in vain, half a life in haste,
One dawn of clarity, one dawn erased.
Prophecies lag behind the schemes of man,
No augury can stay an obsessed hand.
Waves upon waves, the world's perils lie,
Dust upon dust, uncountable debts beneath the sky.
Gatherings and partings like morning dew,
Grudges and loves like lightning, passing through.
A thousand years of rise and fall, nothing new,
A century's success and failure, history askew.
Harvesting deeds, by the destiny's decree,
Fates rise and fall, as sunsets flee.
Harsh words spoken, ears they defy,
Careless talk, hearts they pry.
Crude strokes mar the eye's delight,
Intent to sketch, wounds for sight.
Yaoguais and Buddhas, all in me,
Fiends and gods, alike we see.
My tears flow like springs, don't ask why,
Laughing to the sky, it's folly's cry.
The speaker begins by saying their life has been split in two: part wasted, part rushed, with a brief moment of clear understanding that was lost. That sets a tone of regret and missed opportunity. They also state a principle: prophecies and divinations are slow compared to what people do, and no prediction can stop someone who is driven or obsessed to act.
The poem then describes the state of the world: dangers come in unending waves and many unpaid debts or consequences pile up over time. Relationships and meetings are transient—gatherings and partings vanish like dew—and emotions like love and hatred flash by like lightning. On a larger scale, history repeats: long cycles of rise and fall and shorter spans of success and failure keep happening, so nothing really stays new or stable.
From that pattern follows a rule about destiny: actions are harvested like crops by fate; what people do is collected and determines rises and falls, which are themselves temporary like sunsets. The poem warns that words and casual speech carry weight: harsh or careless talk wounds people even if the speaker thinks it trivial. Artistic or clumsy attempts to portray things can also hurt; crude strokes spoil what might have been pleasing and leave scars.
The narrator claims to contain or perceive all kinds of beings and qualities—yaoguais (demons) and Buddhas, fiends and gods—suggesting they see good and evil, divine and monstrous, mixed together rather than neatly separated. That connects back to the earlier line about human obsession: people act from mixed motives and their actions have complex effects beyond what prophecy predicts.
In the end the speaker is both sorrowful and amused: tears come naturally, but they also laugh toward the sky as if admitting the folly of it all. The implication is a resigned clarity: human action, with its obsessions and words, drives outcomes more than foretold fate; everything cycles and fades, and the proper response mixes grief with a wry, worldly recognition of how things repeat.