English

Surely among a rich man's flowering lawns,
Amid the rustle of his planted hills,
Life overflows without ambitious pains;
And rains down life until the basin spills,
And mounts more dizzy high the more it rains
As though to choose whatever shape it wills
And never stoop to a mechanical
Or servile shape, at others' beck and call.

Mere dreams, mere dreams! Yet Homer had not sung
Had he not found it certain beyond dreams
That out of life's own self-delight had sprung
The abounding glittering jet; though now it seems

1

Master Cheng is thirty — and doesn't have a job!
He's studied books, practiced swordsmanship — and gotten
nowhere!
He would drag his young companions into bars to drink,
and they'd spend their days banging on drums,
or blowing into mouth-organs.
This year, his father died, leaving him an inheritance
of old books,
but the tattered volumes with torn pages
can't be appraised that fast.
Meanwhile, the stove is cold, the firewood has nearly run out,

War ships, cold tides,
ancient troops of clouds,
crows like crazy dots of ink
splashed against the dying sun:
here, on the west bank of the Yangtze,
at Ju-hsü entrenchment,
as the spring waters start to rise
I say farewell to you.

Li Hsü of Ch'ien-chou is an old friend of mine.
Once, when you were drunk, you insulted him to his face!
Two officials who were on the scene told me what happened,
and I could only hang my head, and feel ashamed inside.

The false words of the Buddhists and Taoists
are a pack of lies!
Anyone who comprehends this truth
is a real Confucian scholar.
Stupid people are manipulated by other stupid people:
they make offerings of thousands in cash,
and don't get one iota of benefit!

The wind sighs in the reeds — autumn on the rustic shore.
His raincoat covered with raindrops, he returns alone in his boat.
Do not hate this place for its wind and its waves:
there are wind and waves everywhere, and everywhere, sadness.

Pines and cedars, a hundred feet of green, clinging to the earth.
The hermit's robe is ragged, his hair, spotted with grey.
The desolate mountain is silent — no human voices here!
Among the wolves and tigers, he reads the Tao te ching.

The mountain pavilion is silent — few people visit me here.
The bramble gate is patched with mud, my clothes are patched with
leaves.
I never rise from my bamboo bench — my hair is white as snow;
I no longer have a mind to ask for the secret of Zen.

Among red leaves and green mountains, white clouds fly.
White-shinned horses prance on beams of setting sunlight.
This scene — here before my eyes — is beautiful,
but so hard to put in a poem!
I just can't get the words right, it's driving me out of my mind!

1

Last year, with jade hands you offered cups of tea
boiled with snow brushed from the petals of plum blossoms!
" I'll recite fine poems for you, and serve you fine tea:
you'll remember forever the fifth house on West Bank! "

2

" Next year you must come again
and taste our tea once more
when the whole mountain is covered, front and back,
with blossoming cherry trees.
Please write a letter and let me know
when you'll be getting here —