A Lute of Jade

are jealous of me;
Many calumnies attack me,
And scorning spares me not.
Yet what harm have I done?
I can show a clear conscience.

Yes, the conscience is clear and the song is clear, and so these little streams flow on, shining in the clear dawn of a golden past to which all poets and philosophers to come will turn with wistful eyes. These early ballads of the Chinese differ in feeling from almost all the ballad literature of the world. They are ballads of peace, while those of other nations are so often war-songs and the remembrances of brave deeds. Many of them are sung to a refrain.
More especially is this the case with those whose lines breathe sadness, where the refrain comes like a sigh at the end of a regret:

Cold from the spring the waters pass
Over the waving pampas grass,

All night long in dream I lie,
Ah me! ah me! to awake and sigh --
Sigh for the City of Chow.

Cold from its source the stream meanders