Li Houzhu or Li Yu's "Happy to Meet" 李後主 (李煜) 之《相見歡》

A blog friend has just asked me to promise to do for him the Chinese translation of the lyrics of Li Houzhu 李後主 or Li Yu (李煜)'s "Happy to Meet"  《相見歡》, apparently because he loves it. Though I'm not sure I am at all adequate to this task, I figure that there should no harm my trying. If it doesn't do anything else, it would at least have made my friend happy. For me, that's good enough. So here it goes

相見歡                          林花謝了春紅，太匆匆，      無奈朝來寒雨晚來風。    胭脂淚，相留醉，幾時重？ 自是人生長恨水長東。

Happy to Meet Forest flowers just shed the red of spring , far too hasty Powerless against the morning's cold rains and the evening's winds.        Tears on rouge, retaining each other’s drunkenness, when 's the repeat? Surely life always regrets and rivers always run east.  (tr. El Zorro)

 Li  Houzhu (李後主) (literally "The Latter Lord
Li") (937–978), is more formally known as Southern Tang's late lord (南唐後主) was born Li Yu (李煜), and posthumously known as Prince of Wu (吳王), was the last ruler of the
Southern Tang Kingdom from 961 to 975 during the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms Period (五代十國) (actually more than 10 nations) and is more famous as a poet than as a king. When he ascended the throne, the Northern Song Dynasty (北宋) had already begun and he had been asked several times to submit to its rule but refused on the pretext that he was ill, until 974, when his capital, today's Nanjing, was invaded whereupon he surrendered. He was given the nominal title as the Count of Wei Ming (違命侯) of the equivalent of today's western Shanxi province with its capital at today's Kaifeng (開封) but was in fact subject to solitary confinement and was later poisoned by Song Taizong  (宋太宗) out of jealousy for his literary talents when he wrote a poem lamenting the demise of his former kingdom and the rape of his his second by the Song emperor. It is believed that originally he kept a collection of all his works but only 44 of such lyrics survived to today of which only about 30 are thought to be written by him. He is a real master of the Shi (ci) lyric form (辭), which is meant to be sung, not simply read a literary form especially developed in the Song Dynasty. He developed the ci(辭), form by broadening its scope to cover not only love but also history and philosophy, particularly in his later works. He also introduced the two stanza form, and made great use of contrasts between longer lines of nine characters and shorter ones of three and five. He was a devout Buddhist and was against all forms of killing. When the Song army arrived at his capital, he was at a monastery chanting prayers.

There's also another poem with the same title.

相見歡                                  Happy to Meet                                                                

無言獨上西樓，月如鉤。    Silently going up the West Mansion alone, the moon like a hook。        
寂寞梧桐深院鎖清秋。        Solitary phoenix trees locking in deep autumn.
剪不斷，理還亂，是離愁， No clean cuts, chaos despite ordering, t'was the sadness of farewell,
別有一般滋味在心頭。        A special kind of feeling within the heart. (tr. El Zorro)