Rear Palace Lyric, Bai Juyi (Tang Shi #282)

My silk kerchief is wet with tears—sweet dreams elude me.
The front hall, late at night, they’re beating time for songs.
Though my rose cheeks aren’t old, imperial favor stopped.
I lean upon the incense frame and sit till dawn.

后宫词
泪湿罗巾梦不成，
夜深前殿按歌声。
红颜未老恩先断，
斜倚薰笼坐到明。

The rear palace is the quarters of the imperial harem, and the speaker is a concubine. The frame is one used to hold clothes over an incense burner to perfume them.

(Bai Juyi is noted for striving for clarity of expression, so a less literate audience could follow him. This also makes him easy for foreign language learners to read, thus his popularity in Heian Japan—and my needing less than a half hour on this. The only obscure part was understanding 按 (àn: push down/restrain) as meaning marking the beat.)

—L.