| Harriet Monroe, ed. (1860–1936). Poetry: A Magazine of Verse. 1912–22. | | | | On Finding a Hairpin in a Disused Well | | By Arthur Waley, trans. |
| | From “Chinese Poems”
T’ang Seng-ch’i—Sixth Century
ONCE a girl was gathering flowers, | |
| Gathering flowers at the well-side. | |
| The flowers she plucked she put in her hair | |
| And she looked at herself in the well-water. | |
| Long she looked and couldn’t stop, | 5 |
| Laughing and laughing at her own beauty, | |
| Till one of her golden pins fell out | |
| And there in the well it has lain ever since. | |
| Its peacock-feathers are turned to mud, | |
| But the golden shaft is as bright as new. | 10 |
| The person who wore it is dead and gone; | |
| What was the use of the thing lasting? | | | | |
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