塔勢如涌出,孤高聳天宮。
登臨出世界,磴道盤虛空。
突兀壓神州,崢嶸如鬼工。
四角礙白日,七層摩蒼穹。
下窺指高鳥,俯聽聞驚風。
連山若波濤,奔湊似朝東。
青槐夾馳道,宮館何玲瓏。
秋色從西來,蒼然滿關中。
五陵北原上,萬古青濛濛。
淨理了可悟,勝因夙所宗。
誓將挂冠去,覺道資無窮。
The pagoda, rising abruptly from earth,
Reaches to the very Palace of Heaven....
Climbing, we seem to have left the world behind us,
With the steps we look down on hung from space.
It overtops a holy land
And can only have been built by toil of the spirit.
Its four sides darken the bright sun,
Its seven stories cut the grey clouds;
Birds fly down beyond our sight,
And the rapid wind below our hearing;
Mountain-ranges, toward the east,
Appear to be curving and flowing like rivers;
Far green locust-trees line broad roads
Toward clustered palaces and mansions;
Colours of autumn, out of the west,
Enter advancing through the city;
And northward there lie, in five graveyards,
Calm forever under dewy green grass,
Those who know life's final meaning
Which all humankind must learn.
...Henceforth I put my official hat aside.
To find the Eternal Way is the only happiness.