Du Fu.  A Woman Of Quality.

Du Fu. A Woman Of Quality.

Author: The Ceylon Press September 27, 2025 Duration: 2:37

 
Matchless in breeding and beauty, 
a fine lady has taken refuge 
in this forsaken valley. 
She is of good family, she says, 
but her fortune has withered away; 
now she lives as the grass and trees. 
When the heartlands fell to the rebels 
her brothers were put to death;
birth and position availed nothing--
she was not even allowed
to bring home their bones for burial.
The world turns quickly against
those who have had their day--
fortune is a lamp-flame
flickering in the wind.
Her husband is a fickle fellow
who has a lovely new woman.
Even the vetch-tree is more constant,
folding its leaves every dusk,
and mandarin ducks
always sleep with their mates.
But he has eyes only
for his new woman's smile,
and his ears are deaf
to his first wife's weeping.
High in the mountains
spring water is clear as truth,
but when it reaches the lowlands
it is muddied with rumor.
Her serving-maid returns
from selling her pearls;
she drags a creeper over
to cover holes in the roof.
The flowers the lady picks
are not for her hair,
and the handfuls of cypress
are a bitter stay against hunger.
Her pretty blue sleeves
are too thin for the cold;
as evening falls
she leans on the tall bamboo.

ENJOY MORE
The Ceylon Press publishes a range of podcasts including The History Of Sri Lanka; the off-grid Jungle Diaries podcast; Island Stories, the podcast that explores what makes Sri Lanka, Sri Lankan; the Wild Isle Podcast: Stories from Sri Lanka’s Nature; a range of complete Audio Books about Sri Lanka; as well as Poetry from The Jungle.  All these, along with eBooks, dictionaries, guides and companions can be found at www.theceylonpress.com, based at The Flame Tree Estate & Hotel in the jungle northwest of Kandy: www.flametreeestate.com.  

The copyright of this podcast recording is David Swarbrick @The Ceylon Press 2025. 

POETRY FROM THE JUNGLE GRATEFULLY ACKNOWLEDGES THE COPYRIGHT CREDIT: 
Du Fu (Chinese lived from 712. Copyright © 2008 - 2025 The National Museum of Language 


There’s a particular sound to the jungle-a layered quiet of leaves, birds, and distant water. It’s from within that atmosphere that The Sri Lanka Podcast: Poetry From The Jungle finds its voice. Produced by The Ceylon Press, each episode is recorded at the Flame Tree Estate & Hotel, nestled in the wilds northwest of Kandy. This isn’t a standard literary analysis show; it’s an experience of resonance. Here, timeless poems by renowned authors are read aloud, allowing their rhythms and meanings to intertwine with the ambient sounds of a Sri Lankan forest. The setting does more than provide backdrop-it actively shapes how you hear each word, offering a fresh and quietly profound perspective on verses you thought you knew. This podcast invites a slower kind of listening, where a classic sonnet might be punctuated by a monsoon shower or the call of a hornbill. It’s for anyone who believes place matters, that the environment where a story is told becomes part of the story itself. Tune in for a unique fusion of the literary and the natural, a deliberate retreat into the world of spoken art framed by one of the planet’s most vibrant soundscapes.
Author: Language: English Episodes: 89

The Sri Lanka Podcast: Poetry From The Jungle
Podcast Episodes
John Dryden.  You Charm'd Me Not With That Fair Face [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:34
You charm'd me not with that fair face Though it was all divine:To be another's is the grace, That makes me wish you mine. The Gods and Fortune take their part Who like young monarchs fight;And boldly dare invade that he…
John Keats.  To Autumn. [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 2:57
Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness, Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun; Conspiring with him how to load and bless With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run; To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees…
Jayanta Mahapatra.  Of That Love. [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:30
Of that love, of that mile walked together in the rain, only a weariness remains. I am that stranger now my mirror holds to me; the moment's silence hardly moves across the glass. I pity myself in another's guise.And no…
John Donne.  Song: Go And Catch A Falling Star. [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 2:05
Go and catch a falling star, Get with child a mandrake root, Tell me where all past years are, Or who cleft the devil's foot, Teach me to hear mermaids singing, Or to keep off envy's stinging, And find What wind Serves t…
Homer.  Troy Has Perished.  From The Iliad. [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:27
Troy has perished, the great city.Only the red flame now lives there.The dust is rising, spreading out like a great wing of smoke and all is hidden.We now are gone, one here, one there.And Troy is gone forever.Farewell,…
Hafiz.  VII. [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:51
Again the garden has got the glitter of Spring: The nightingale hears good news, for the rose is come. Soft wind returning to the young plants of the meadow, Greet for us the rose, the cypress and the sweet basil. They a…
Ho Nansorhon.  Spring. [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 2:11
In the courtyard a shower of peach petals piles deep; Wandering orioles cry out on a magnolia tree near the fence. Through tasseled silk curtains the spring cold seeps in; From the censer a list of burning incense gently…
Henry Lawson.  On The Night Train. [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 8:03
Have you seen the Bush by moonlight, from the train, go running by, Here a patch of glassy water, there a glimpse of mystic sky? Have you heard the still small voice calling, yet so warm, and yet so cold: “I’m the Mother…
Gerard Manley Hopkins.  The Windhover. [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:59
I caught this morning morning's minion, king- dom of daylight's dauphin, dapple-dawn-drawn Falcon, in his riding Of the rolling level underneath him steady air, and striding High there, how he rung upon the rein of a wim…
John Betjeman.  Song Of A Nightclub Proprietress. [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 2:15
I walked into the nightclub in the morning, there was Kummel on the handle of the door, the ashtrays were unemptied, The cleaning unattempted, And a squashed tomato sandwich on the floor. I pulled aside the thick magenta…