Zhongnan, The Great One, so near the Celestial City,
Linked mount on mount to the sea.
White clouds, where I look back, close in
Green mists, when I approach, are gone
Its peak, the pivot of the constellations' change;
Its valleys deep, define both light and shade
I try to find a place to spend the night,
Across the stream, call to the woodcutter.

Most of these minor samurai draw a stipend of three koku —
So how come they act so big?
From head to toe, they're a mass of unmitigated gall
At the theater, they always get in — for free.

How admirable — the fine gentleman,
In spare moments so often trying his hand at poetry!
His old-style verse is modeled on Han and Wei works;
For modern style, he makes the Tang his teacher;
With what elegance he shapes his compositions,
Adding touches that are striking and new
But since he never writes of things in the heart,
However many he may turn out, what's the point?

Who says my poems are poems?
My poems are not poems at all
Only when you understand that my poems are not poems,
Can we begin to talk about poems.

I look back — I do not see the ancients;
I look ahead — can't see the generations to come
I brood on the endlessness of Heaven and Earth,
And tears stream down — I stand alone.

On the crest of the hills,
" Cherry blossoms! " " No, clouds! "
till the dawn sun rose up
to squelch the argument.

When the night falls
the day starts to break
on the brothels.

Yoshiwara —
that's where a man goes to dump
all his better judgment.

Each time footsteps
approach, he puts it under
the Analects .

List to the forest-voice murmuring low:
All that it saw when alone with its laughter,
All that it suffered in times that came after,
Mournful it tells, that the wind may know.