时年十七　　All alone in a foreign land,
　　I am twice as homesick on this day
　　When brothers carry dogwood up the mountain,
　　Each of them a branch-and my branch missing.

　　Its massive height near the City of Heaven
　　Joins a thousand mountains to the corner of the sea.
　　Clouds, when I look back, close behind me,
　　Mists, when I enter them, are gone.
　　A central peak divides the wilds
　　And weather into many valleys.
　　...Needing a place to spend the night,
　　I call to a wood-cutter over the river.

　　We finally parted in the dale. As I saw
　　The sun settle down, I closed my wattle door.
　　The grass greens in spring every year, but alack!
　　My friend, can I expect to see you back?

　　I sit alone by the serene bamboos,
　　Strumming my zither and whistling.
　　No one knows I'm in the deep woods,
　　Only the moon comes watching.
　　
　　
　　2) Bamboo Adobe
　　By Wang Wei
　　Translated by Liu Wu-chi
　　
　　I sit along in the dark bamboo grove,
　　Playing the zither and whistling long.
　　In this deep wood no one would know -
　　Only the bright moon comes to shine.
　　
　　
　　3) Hut in the Bamboos
　　
　　Sitting alone, in the hush of the bamboo;
　　I thrum my zither, and whistle lingering notes.
　　In the secrecy of the wood, no one can hear;
　　Only the clear moon, comes to shine on me.
　　
　　
　　4) In a Retreat Among Bamboos
　　Translated by Witter Bynner
　　
　　Leaning alone in the close bamboos,
　　I am playing my lute and humming a song
　　Too softly for anyone to hear –
　　Except my comrade, the bright moon.

　　There seems to be no one on the empty mountain....
　　And yet I think I hear a voice,
　　Where sunlight, entering a grove,
　　Shines back to me from the green moss.

　　Osmanthus earth down, dead of night, Spring Hill empty.
　　Moonrise shock blackbirds, when Jian Ming in the spring.

　　I dismount from my horse and I offer you wine,
　　And I ask you where you are going and why.
　　And you answer: "I am discontent
　　And would rest at the foot of the southern mountain.
　　So give me leave and ask me no questions.
　　White clouds pass there without end."

　　In a happy reign there should be no hermits;
　　The wise and able should consult together....
　　So you, a man of the eastern mountains,
　　Gave up your life of picking herbs
　　And came all the way to the Gate of Gold --
　　But you found your devotion unavailing.
　　...To spend the Day of No Fire on one of the southern rivers,
　　You have mended your spring clothes here in these northern cities.
　　I pour you the farewell wine as you set out from the capital --
　　Soon I shall be left behind here by my bosomfriend.
　　In your sail-boat of sweet cinnamon-wood
　　You will float again toward your own thatch door,
　　Led along by distant trees
　　To a sunset shining on a far-away town.
　　...What though your purpose happened to fail,
　　Doubt not that some of us can hear high music.

　　I have sailed the River of Yellow Flowers,
　　Borne by the channel of a green stream,
　　Rounding ten thousand turns through the mountains
　　On a journey of less than thirty miles....
　　Rapids hum over heaped rocks;
　　But where light grows dim in the thick pines,
　　The surface of an inlet sways with nut-horns
　　And weeds are lush along the banks.
　　...Down in my heart I have always been as pure
　　As this limpid water is....
　　Oh, to remain on a broad flat rock
　　And to cast a fishing-line forever!

　　In the slant of the sun on the country-side,
　　Cattle and sheep trail home along the lane;
　　And a rugged old man in a thatch door
　　Leans on a staff and thinks of his son, the herdboy.
　　There are whirring pheasants? full wheat-ears,
　　Silk-worms asleep, pared mulberry-leaves.
　　And the farmers, returning with hoes on their shoulders,
　　Hail one another familiarly.
　　...No wonder I long for the simple life
　　And am sighing the old song, Oh, to go Back Again!

　　Since beauty is honoured all over the Empire,
　　How could Xi Shi remain humbly at home? --
　　Washing clothes at dawn by a southern lake --
　　And that evening a great lady in a palace of the north:
　　Lowly one day, no different from the others,
　　The next day exalted, everyone praising her.
　　No more would her own hands powder her face
　　Or arrange on her shoulders a silken robe.
　　And the more the King loved her, the lovelier she looked,
　　Blinding him away from wisdom.
　　...Girls who had once washed silk beside her
　　Were kept at a distance from her chariot.
　　And none of the girls in her neighbours' houses
　　By pursing their brows could copy her beauty.

　　There's a girl from Loyang in the door across the street,
　　She looks fifteen, she may be a little older.
　　...While her master rides his rapid horse with jade bit an bridle,
　　Her handmaid brings her cod-fish in a golden plate.
　　On her painted pavilions, facing red towers,
　　Cornices are pink and green with peach-bloom and with willow,
　　Canopies of silk awn her seven-scented chair,
　　And rare fans shade her, home to her nine-flowered curtains.
　　Her lord, with rank and wealth and in the bud of life,
　　Exceeds in munificence the richest men of old.
　　He favours this girl of lowly birth, he has her taught to dance;
　　And he gives away his coral-trees to almost anyone.
　　The wind of dawn just stirs when his nine soft lights go out,
　　Those nine soft lights like petals in a flying chain of flowers.
　　Between dances she has barely time for singing over the songs;
　　No sooner is she dressed again than incense burns before her.
　　Those she knows in town are only the rich and the lavish,
　　And day and night she is visiting the hosts of the gayest mansions.
　　...Who notices the girl from Yue with a face of white jade,
　　Humble, poor, alone, by the river, washing silk?

　　When he was a youth of fifteen or twenty,
　　He chased a wild horse, he caught him and rode him,
　　He shot the white-browed mountain tiger,
　　He defied the yellow-bristled Horseman of Ye.
　　Fighting single- handed for a thousand miles,
　　With his naked dagger he could hold a multitude.
　　...Granted that the troops of China were as swift as heaven's thunder
　　And that Tartar soldiers perished in pitfalls fanged with iron,
　　General Wei Qing's victory was only a thing of chance.
　　And General Li Guang's thwarted effort was his fate, not his fault.
　　Since this man's retirement he is looking old and worn:
　　Experience of the world has hastened his white hairs.
　　Though once his quick dart never missed the right eye of a bird,
　　Now knotted veins and tendons make his left arm like an osier.
　　He is sometimes at the road-side selling melons from his garden,
　　He is sometimes planting willows round his hermitage.
　　His lonely lane is shut away by a dense grove,
　　His vacant window looks upon the far cold mountains
　　But, if he prayed, the waters would come gushing for his men
　　And never would he wanton his cause away with wine.
　　...War-clouds are spreading, under the Helan Range;
　　Back and forth, day and night, go feathered messages;
　　In the three River Provinces, the governors call young men –
　　And five imperial edicts have summoned the old general.
　　So he dusts his iron coat and shines it like snow-
　　Waves his dagger from its jade hilt in a dance of starry steel.
　　He is ready with his strong northern bow to smite the Tartar chieftain –
　　That never a foreign war-dress may affront the Emperor.
　　...There once was an aged Prefect, forgotten and far away,
　　Who still could manage triumph with a single stroke.

　　A fisherman is drifting, enjoying the spring mountains,
　　And the peach-trees on both banks lead him to an ancient source.
　　Watching the fresh-coloured trees, he never thinks of distance
　　Till he comes to the end of the blue stream and suddenly- strange men!
　　It's a cave-with a mouth so narrow that he has to crawl through;
　　But then it opens wide again on a broad and level path –
　　And far beyond he faces clouds crowning a reach of trees,
　　And thousands of houses shadowed round with flowers and bamboos....
　　Woodsmen tell him their names in the ancient speech of Han;
　　And clothes of the Qin Dynasty are worn by all these people
　　Living on the uplands, above the Wuling River,
　　On farms and in gardens that are like a world apart,
　　Their dwellings at peace under pines in the clear moon,
　　Until sunrise fills the low sky with crowing and barking.
　　...At news of a stranger the people all assemble,
　　And each of them invites him home and asks him where he was born.
　　Alleys and paths are cleared for him of petals in the morning,
　　And fishermen and farmers bring him their loads at dusk....
　　They had left the world long ago, they had come here seeking refuge;
　　They have lived like angels ever since, blessedly far away,
　　No one in the cave knowing anything outside,
　　Outsiders viewing only empty mountains and thick clouds.
　　...The fisherman, unaware of his great good fortune,
　　Begins to think of country, of home, of worldly ties,
　　Finds his way out of the cave again, past mountains and past rivers,
　　Intending some time to return, when he has told his kin.
　　He studies every step he takes, fixes it well in mind,
　　And forgets that cliffs and peaks may vary their appearance.
　　...It is certain that to enter through the deepness of the mountain,
　　A green river leads you, into a misty wood.
　　But now, with spring-floods everywhere and floating peachpetals –
　　Which is the way to go, to find that hidden source?

　　The mountains are cold and blue now
　　And the autumn waters have run all day.
　　By my thatch door, leaning on my staff,
　　I listen to cicadas in the evening wind.
　　Sunset lingers at the ferry,
　　Supper-smoke floats up from the houses.
　　...Oh, when shall I pledge the great Hermit again
　　And sing a wild poem at Five Willows?

　　After rain the empty mountain
　　Stands autumnal in the evening,
　　Moonlight in its groves of pine,
　　Stones of crystal in its brooks.
　　Bamboos whisper of washer-girls bound home,
　　Lotus-leaves yield before a fisher-boat –
　　And what does it matter that springtime has gone,
　　While you are here, O Prince of Friends?

　　The limpid river, past its bushes
　　Running slowly as my chariot,
　　Becomes a fellow voyager
　　Returning home with the evening birds.
　　A ruined city-wall overtops an old ferry,
　　Autumn sunset floods the peaks.
　　...Far away, beside Mount Song,
　　I shall close my door and be at peace.

　　As the years go by, give me but peace,
　　Freedom from ten thousand matters.
　　I ask myself and always answer:
　　What can be better than coming home?
　　A wind from the pine-trees blows my sash,
　　And my lute is bright with the mountain moon.
　　You ask me about good and evil fortune?....
　　Hark, on the lake there's a fisherman singing!

　　Not knowing the way to the Temple of Heaped Fragrance,
　　Under miles of mountain-cloud I have wandered
　　Through ancient woods without a human track;
　　But now on the height I hear a bell.
　　A rillet sings over winding rocks,
　　The sun is tempered by green pines....
　　And at twilight, close to an emptying pool,
　　Thought can conquer the Passion-Dragon.

　　From ten thousand valleys the trees touch heaven;
　　On a thousand peaks cuckoos are calling;
　　And, after a night of mountain rain,
　　From each summit come hundreds of silken cascades.
　　...If girls are asked in tribute the fibre they weave,
　　Or farmers quarrel over taro fields,
　　Preside as wisely as Wenweng did....
　　Is fame to be only for the ancients?

　　With its three southern branches reaching the Chu border,
　　And its nine streams touching the gateway of Jing,
　　This river runs beyond heaven and earth,
　　Where the colour of mountains both is and is not.
　　The dwellings of men seem floating along
　　On ripples of the distant sky –
　　These beautiful days here in Xiangyang
　　Make drunken my old mountain heart!

　　My heart in middle age found the Way.
　　And I came to dwell at the foot of this mountain.
　　When the spirit moves, I wander alone
　　Amid beauty that is all for me....
　　I will walk till the water checks my path,
　　Then sit and watch the rising clouds –
　　And some day meet an old wood-cutter
　　And talk and laugh and never return.

　　The red-capped Cock-Man has just announced morning;
　　The Keeper of the Robes brings Jade-Cloud Furs;
　　Heaven's nine doors reveal the palace and its courtyards;
　　And the coats of many countries bow to the Pearl Crown.
　　Sunshine has entered the giants' carven palms;
　　Incense wreathes the Dragon Robe:
　　The audience adjourns-and the five-coloured edict
　　Sets girdle-beads clinking toward the Lake of the Phoenix.

　　Round a turn of the Qin Fortress winds the Wei River,
　　And Yellow Mountain foot-hills enclose the Court of China;
　　Past the South Gate willows comes the Car of Many Bells
　　On the upper Palace-Garden Road-a solid length of blossom;
　　A Forbidden City roof holds two phoenixes in cloud;
　　The foliage of spring shelters multitudes from rain;
　　And now, when the heavens are propitious for action,
　　Here is our Emperor ready-no wasteful wanderer.