Comprehensive Examination in English: Session II
Part A

for Interdisciplinary Teaching
Michelle Stappler, Regents High School Examination

Poem I
On Failing the Examination

The dawn moon struggles to shine its light,
The man of sorrows struggles with his feelings.
Who says in the spring things are bound to flourish?
All I see is Frost on the leaves.
The eagle sickens, his power vanishes,
While little wrens soar on borrowed wings.
But leave them, leave them be! -
These thoughts like wounds from a knife!

- Meng Chiao ( 751-814)

Poem II
Beginning of Autumn: A Poem to Send to Tzu-yu

The hundred rivers day and night flow on,
We and all things following;
Only the heart remains unmoved,
Clutching the past.
I recall when we stayed at Huai-yuan Stop,
Door shut against fall heat,
Eating boiled greens, studying,
Wiping away the sweat, you and I.
The west wind suddenly turned cold;
Dried leaves blew in the window.
You got up for a heavier coat
And took hold of my hand:
"We won't be young for long-
I needn't tell you.
Probably we'll have to part,
Hard to tell when success may come-"
Even then I felt a chill of sorrow,
And now when both of us are old-
Too late to look for a lost road,
Too late, I'm afraid, to study the Way.
This fall I began talks to buy some land;
If I build a house, it should be one by spring.
Nights at Snow Hall, in wind and rain, A
Already I hear you talking to me.

-Su Shin ( 1037-1101)