Endless Yearning
Song lyrics
I am endlessly yearning to be in L.A.,
Open the window and stare far away
The moon’s like an orchid, alone in the sky
The flower I gave you when we said goodbye
Deep is the sky, heaven is high,
Restless and green the old river flows
Streaming my sorrow far down through the hills
Endlessly yearning, my heart ‘s breaking so
Endlessly yearning, and I
Hope that you’re yearning for me, if you
Doubt that I’m yearning my darling, come
Share my bright mirror, and see what I see
​
The radio’s loud but I’ll soon turn it down
to strum soft guitar chords into the night air
When next the wind blows through the mountains in spring
I wish it would bear you this song that I share.
​
There’s mist in the air, the full moon is sleepless
Eyes that once sparkled now moisten like dew
Our glances seemed innocent flirting back then
But I sigh for what you and I failed to pursue
​
Endlessly yearning, and I
Hope that you’re yearning for me, if you
Doubt that I’m yearning my darling, come
Share my bright mirror, and see what I see
​
Endlessly yearning, and I
Hope that you’re yearning for me, if you
Doubt that I’m yearning my darling, come
Share my bright mirror, and see what I see
Li Bai ,
two related poems styled as “a folk-styled verse."
ENDLESS YEARNING I
"I am endlessly yearning
To be in Changan.
...Insects hum of autumn by the gold brim of the well;
A thin frost glistens like little mirrors on my cold mat;
The high lantern flickers; and. deeper grows my longing.
I lift the shade and, with many a sigh, gaze upon the moon,
Single as a flower, centred from the clouds.
Above, I see the blueness and deepness of sky.
Below, I see the greenness and the restlessness of water....
Heaven is high, earth wide; bitter between them flies my sorrow.
Can I dream through the gateway, over the mountain?
Endless longing
Breaks my heart."
​
​
Leonard Durso Blog (translators Witter Bynner & Kiang Kang-ho)
​
​
ENDLESS YEARNING II
"The sun has set, and a mist is in the flowers;
And the moon grows very white and people sad and sleepless.
A Zhao harp has just been laid mute on its phoenix holder,
And a Shu lute begins to sound its mandarin-duck strings....
Since nobody can bear to you the burden of my song,
Would that it might follow the spring wind to Yanran Mountain.
I think of you far away, beyond the blue sky,
And my eyes that once were sparkling
Are now a well of tears.
...Oh, if ever you should doubt this aching of my heart,
Here in my bright mirror come back and look at me!"
​
Leonard Durso Blog​ (translators Witter Bynner & Kiang Kang-ho)
Witter Bynner, The Chinese Translations (New York: Farrar Straus Giroux 1978) 119.
​
My song: I cast my song as my lonesome cowboy song. In my imagination, I hear Marty Robbins singing this song, with Grady Martin adding a bit of the guitar magic he sprinkled on El Paso.