Eighth Song: The Vanity of Spring

将那三春看破
桃红柳绿待如何
把这韶华打灭
觅那清淡天和
说什么 天上夭桃盛
云中杏蕊多
到头来
谁把秋捱过
则看那 白杨村里人呜咽
青枫林下鬼吟哦
更兼着连天衰草遮坟墓
这的是 昨贫今富人劳碌
春荣秋谢花折磨
似这般 生关死劫谁能躲
闻说道
西方宝树唤婆娑
上结著长生果

When triple spring as vanity was seen,
What use the blushing flowers, the willows green?
From youth’s extravagance you sought release
To win chaste quietness and heavenly peace.
The hymeneal peach-blooms in the sky,
The flowering almond’s blossoms seen on high
Dismiss, since none, for sure,
Can autumn’s blighting frost endure.
Amidst sad aspens mourners sob and sigh,
In maple woods the poor ghosts thinly cry,
And under the dead grasslands lost graves lie.
Now poor, now rich, men’s lives in toil are passed
To be, like summer’s pride, cut down at last.
The doors of life and death all must go through.
Yet this I know is true:
In Paradise there grows a precious tree
Which bears the fruit of immortality.