White Lotus

Here is Professor Xu's verson of the Tang poem White lotus by Lu Guimeng:

White Lotus Blooms are often outweighed by red flowers
They'd rather be transplanted by lunar bowers.
Heartless they seem, but they have deep grief no one knows.
See them fall in moonlight when morning wind blows.


Here is the version Steve Watkins and I worked out:

The white lotus is often abused
By flowers of more seductive hues.
Rightous and cool, by Yao Pool*
Should be the home the lotus knows.
Heartless and cruel it may seem,
yet who can know how deep it grieves?
Moonlight fades, cold dawn breaks
Flower falls in morning breeze.

*Yao pool, Steve says, is the home of the "King mother Goddess".