West of the golden sky,
Where the white sun sinks away,
Old K'ang, the Barbarian Birdie,
Was born in that Scythian cave of the moon.
Awesome and craggy the features of his face;
Measured and precise his manner of bearing.
Green jade glowing, glowing, the pupils of his eyes;
Yellow gold curling, curling, the hair upon his temples.
Flowery canopies hang down to his lower lashes,
A lofty mountain looms over his upper lip.
Not seeing his strange, uncanny form,
How could you know the Lord of Creation?
The Great Way was this mummer's stern father,
Primal Ether this mummer's elderly kin.
He played with P'an-ku, patting his head,
And pushing the carriage turned Heaven's wheels.
He says he saw when the sun and the moon were born,
Cast from water-silver and the essence of fire.
While the solar crows had not yet come out of the valley
And the lunar rabbit was still a half-hidden form,
Nü-wa toyed with the yellow earth
And lumped it into ignorant humans,
Scattering them to the Six Directions,
Thick, thick, like dust and sand.
When birth and death go on endlessly,
Who could guess that this barbarian is a realized immortal?
Since the Jo Tree was planted by the Western Ocean
And the Fu Mulberry was set in the Eastern Sea,
To the present day, how great the time?
The twigs and leaves are ten-thousand miles long.
The Middle Kingdom had Seven Sages,
Then along the way collapsed into chaos.
His Majesty answered the upturn of fortune,
And a dragon flew into the city of Hsien-yang.
As when the Red Eyebrows set up their Tub,
And White Water restored the Glory of Han,
So, angrily seething, the Four Seas moved,
And for Him great spreading waves arose.
When He stepped to tread the Purple Tenuity,
Heaven's Gates opened of their own accord,
And the old barbarian responding to Utmost Virtue
Came east to present his immortal actors:
Lions in the five colors,
Phoenixes with the nine perfections.
These are the old barbarian's poultry and hounds;
Singing and dancing they have flown to God's Town,
Proudly prancy, swirly whirly,
Advancing, retreating, and dressing on line.
He is good at barbarian songs. He offers up Chinese wine,
He kneels upon two knees. He presses both elbows together.
Scattering flowers, pointing to Heaven,
raising his pallid arms.
He worships the Dragon Countenance,
He offers long life to The Sage.
Northern Dipper may wobble. South Mountain may fall.
But, O Son of Heaven, as nine nines are eighty-one
and so many times ten thousand years,
long may You drain the ten thousand years cup.
Where the white sun sinks away,
Old K'ang, the Barbarian Birdie,
Was born in that Scythian cave of the moon.
Awesome and craggy the features of his face;
Measured and precise his manner of bearing.
Green jade glowing, glowing, the pupils of his eyes;
Yellow gold curling, curling, the hair upon his temples.
Flowery canopies hang down to his lower lashes,
A lofty mountain looms over his upper lip.
Not seeing his strange, uncanny form,
How could you know the Lord of Creation?
The Great Way was this mummer's stern father,
Primal Ether this mummer's elderly kin.
He played with P'an-ku, patting his head,
And pushing the carriage turned Heaven's wheels.
He says he saw when the sun and the moon were born,
Cast from water-silver and the essence of fire.
While the solar crows had not yet come out of the valley
And the lunar rabbit was still a half-hidden form,
Nü-wa toyed with the yellow earth
And lumped it into ignorant humans,
Scattering them to the Six Directions,
Thick, thick, like dust and sand.
When birth and death go on endlessly,
Who could guess that this barbarian is a realized immortal?
Since the Jo Tree was planted by the Western Ocean
And the Fu Mulberry was set in the Eastern Sea,
To the present day, how great the time?
The twigs and leaves are ten-thousand miles long.
The Middle Kingdom had Seven Sages,
Then along the way collapsed into chaos.
His Majesty answered the upturn of fortune,
And a dragon flew into the city of Hsien-yang.
As when the Red Eyebrows set up their Tub,
And White Water restored the Glory of Han,
So, angrily seething, the Four Seas moved,
And for Him great spreading waves arose.
When He stepped to tread the Purple Tenuity,
Heaven's Gates opened of their own accord,
And the old barbarian responding to Utmost Virtue
Came east to present his immortal actors:
Lions in the five colors,
Phoenixes with the nine perfections.
These are the old barbarian's poultry and hounds;
Singing and dancing they have flown to God's Town,
Proudly prancy, swirly whirly,
Advancing, retreating, and dressing on line.
He is good at barbarian songs. He offers up Chinese wine,
He kneels upon two knees. He presses both elbows together.
Scattering flowers, pointing to Heaven,
raising his pallid arms.
He worships the Dragon Countenance,
He offers long life to The Sage.
Northern Dipper may wobble. South Mountain may fall.
But, O Son of Heaven, as nine nines are eighty-one
and so many times ten thousand years,
long may You drain the ten thousand years cup.