Whose harmonica is this that glistens so in the sun, How it looks like the wings of the dragonfly!
—Epigraph
Verse 1
In the valley surrounded by mountains
The sound of his hammer resonates through the silent fog
Making music that causes beads of dew to fall
And the maiden groves would halt their dancing steps in the wind
If so, just let this masculine resonance
Commence its marriage of love and beauty
On the plump belly of the lake in the plateau
Under the bright moonlight
Verse 2
His old and wrinkled hands
Are like the rivers in December on the plateau
Where flow the brown cadenzas
And the undulating sentiments
That in slow motion
Cut and shape the ancient brass more golden than gold
Verse 3
A fish swims across his hands, in its total freedom
Its two wings shaped in bronze-colored waves
He raises the reef higher and higher
And causes it to clash with the fish's golden scales
So that from his fairytale kingdom
A great many dragonflies would fly out
And cast their enchanting spell
Verse 4
The golden wings of the dragonflies will reverberate with loud resonance
Resonating in the vault of heaven
Resonating on the height of mountains above the ground
Resonating on the foreheads of men
Resonating on the lips of women
Resonating on the earrings of children
The golden wings of the dragonflies will reverberate with loud resonance
Resonating in the East
Resonating in the West
The resonance is meant for the Yellow people
The resonance is meant for the Black people
The resonance is meant for the White people
The resonance goes to the upper reaches
Of the Yangtze River and the Yellow River
And the resonance goes to the lower reaches
Of the Mississippi River
The resonance is the sound produced by the Yi people
From the time immemorial and
From the depths of their soul
Verse 5
As the moon rises from behind the mountain
And in an act of love stands rock-like on the hillock
Those dragonflies that linger affectionately
Those dragonflies that are busy and sweet
Perch on the bosoms of young maidens
And the silent trumpet flowers, all by themselves,
Breathe with their faces up toward the starry sky
Thanks to so many pairs of golden wings
LOVE can be here in this land for so long
Verse 6
If our land can hear no more of the fluttering of the golden wings
If our land is deprived of the echoes that invoke friendship
Then our world would be hushed in death-like silence
And our land would become a land of bleakness and desolation;
Nothing would be more hopeless
And more lamentable
Verse 7
Mankind is producing the proteins for life
Mankind is also producing the nuclear atoms for death
Picasso's doves of peace
Will fly parallel to the two wings of nuclear bombers
Ove the heads of human beings
Over plains
Over plateaus
Over rivers
Over nameless deep valleys
Our old harmonica-maker has created thousands of love affairs
And our old harmonica-maker has created thousands of sunny planets
Oh, look at the dragonflies with golden wings
How they are heading toward the homeland of all human races
Verse 8
He is bound to die someday, in obscurity,
Breathing his last breath for the sake of the immortal love
By that time a swarm of beautiful dragonflies
Will hover over his peaceful skull
Their wings sparkling with stunning golden light
And the Yi people so enamored of the chanting of songs
Will bear his dead body in the direction of
The eternal sun
