Endless Longing 

English translation by Vuong Thanh


Flowers falling, leaves covering the courtyard.

All day in sorrow, missing you but not seeing you.

Pain cuts like a knife in my heart.

Tears stain my cheeks, and more tears fall...

Heart brimming with unspoken innermost thoughts,

To whom can I confide, who’s a friend of the heart.

Oh wind!

Help me, disperse the evening clouds,

So I can share my feelings with the Moon Lady.

Holding the zither, ascending to the upper story. 

Silver threads of shimmering moonlight spread across the night.

Was  playing a deep love melody midway

When tears fall, strings snap, and my heart lost in sorrow...

The Longing River, people say, it's so deep.

Comparing it to the heart’s longing, it’s not comparable.

No matter how deep, the river still has a bottom. 

But  the shore of longing lies, who knows where?

You at the beginning of the Longing River.

Me at the end of the Longing River.

We miss each other without being able to meet.

Though we both drink from the waters of the Longing River.

My soul in a dream searches in vain for you,

Perhaps only death will help us see each other. 

Only one who has crossed the Longing Bridge

will know the sorrow and suffering of Love’s longing. 

Endless longing, oh endless longing,

Longing for so long, it’s boundless. 

If I had known my heart would suffer so,

I'd rather not have met you in the beginning!"