By numbers here from shame or censure free,
All crimes are safe, but hated poverty.
This, only this, the rigid law pursues,
This, only this, provokes the snarling muse.
The sober trader at a tatter'd cloak
Wakes from his dream, and labours for a joke;
With brisker air the silken courtiers gaze,
And turn the varied taunt a thousand ways.
Of all the griefs that harass the distress'd,
Sure the most bitter is a scornful jest;
Fate never wounds more deep the gen'rous heart
Than when a blockhead's insult points the dart.

Three feet of mud in this narrow alley:
no one comes to visit me, hidden in seclusion.
Whistling at the window, the wind keeps me from sleep;
dampening the stove, raindrops make poverty even worse.
On country roads, wild flowers greet the traveler,
on bridges spanning the river, willows see him off.
For now, I must lead this primitive life
and rest this exiled body as best I can.

Suddenly, warm weather, I change to lighter clothes.
Quietly, I stroll along the green banks.
The birds chirp, as if they had a complaint;
the flowers look saddened, as if lamenting some loss.
I remember the older generations for their integrity,
and stand in awe of the young for their talents.
I feel a natural love for the pleasures of the country:
I've never purposely hidden from the world of reputation!

Reflections in the river: trembling spring trees.
High-water marks: engraved on the evening sand.
Green reeds, three feet of rainwater;
red hibiscus, a hedgeful of blossoms.
Leave your country, and you still think of your country.
Return home, and you go on dreaming of home!
I have never had a desire for rank and salary:
why do I have to be so far from the capital?

Just a few feet away, a temple from the Six Dynasties,
pines and cedars shading its low walls.
Wild monkeys steal offerings to Buddha,
and mountain birds imitate the way people speak.
The stones here are imbued with spirit — even on clear days
they are moist.
The stream has a voice — in the utter silence
it keeps babbling.
My worldly mind has long since become void;
this place is my Jetavana monastery.

I've given up poetry — I have no new manuscripts.
I've stopped playing the lute — it's hidden in its box.
Mushrooms are growing in the mortar
where I used to pound herbs.
Lichens have covered the spade which once dug flower-beds.
The pathway is full of puddles — I'm too lazy to sweep them away.
The garden is overgrown — I'm too tired to pull out the weeds.
And I'm fearful of questions about my past life:
before people have even opened their mouths,
I start to feel ashamed.

I planned to get drunk to ease my sadness,
but my sadness just increased when I got drunk!
I've been returned to my home province, but I still seem
to be a traveler;
the older I get, the more I feel like a monk.
Impressions for poems? — flute music carried from the tower
by the wind.
Sounds of chessmen? — from the lamplit boat in the snow.
Don't think this life is unbearable:
the hermit-farmer can take it all.

Come away, bring on the bride
And place her by her lover's side:
You fair troop of maids attend her,
Pure and holy thoughts befriend her.
Blush, and wish, you virgins all,
Many such fair nights may fall.

Chorus.

Hymen, fill the house with joy;
All thy sacred fires employ;
Bless the bed with holy love:
Now, fair orb of beauty, move.

Would that young Amenophis Fourth returned
Prince Hamlet and the Poet Keats in one,
He mocked at fraud, even his own crown,
He loved all classic beauty in the town,
He rode abroad to build his lotus tomb,
Praising one god, and that one god, the sun.
The idol-worshippers chipped out his name
From wall and obelisk, to end his fame.

Still let that brave, flower-loving King of Time
Be throned in your deep hearts, to raise for you
The hopes the prince and his mother Thi, well knew,
Filling these barren days with Mystery,

There was no reason to expect sadness
to visit my little studio.
May I ask, who escorted sadness here,
who introduced it?
But no, it's just that the old year
never took its sadness away —
it's not that the new year
brought in a new supply.