Classic Poem

Incense Burner Peak, far far away,
is here in my mind through ear and eye imaginings;
the whole year a slave to chores and duties,
today at last I've come.
Gripping vines, surmounting steep rocks,
hands and feet weary of ups and downs;
three or four join me in my outing,
two who did not venture the climb.
I climb till I reach the summit of the peak,
eyes blurred, spirit dazed and bewildered,
ten thousand feet up in the air,
barely a yard or two of ground beneath me!
But till one plumbs the limits of sight and hearing,
how to know the vastness of this universe,
where Yangtze's stream is thin as a strand of rope
and P'en Town littler than my palm?
And I, so entangled in niggling concerns
I can't yet break from the dust and snares of the world!
Homeward bound, I sigh at the thought,
head bowed, returning to my anthill.