I don’t ask to be one of the three ministers;
there’s enough to eat—who needs a lot of money?
I just want to lead a happy life
enjoying the moon and the wind.

translated by Jonathan Chaves

Master T’ao, I can’t compete with you!
Forever snarled up in official business,
what can I do to break away,
live just once a life like yours?
Thorns grow in the field of the mind;
clear them and there’s no finer place.
Free the mind—let it move with the world
and doubt nothing it finds there!
In wine I stumbled on unexpected joy.
Now I always have an empty cup in hand.

translated by Burton Watson

From the boat watching hills—swift horses:
a hundred herds race by in a flash.
Ragged peaks before us suddenly change shape,
ranges behind us start and rush away.
I look up: a narrow road angles back and forth,
a man walking it, high in the distance.
I wave from the deck, trying to call,
but the sail takes us south like a soaring bird.

translated by Burton Watson

The pure wind makes me chant poems.
The bright moon urges me to drink.
Intoxicated, I fall among the flowers,
heaven my blanket, earth my pillow.

translated by Jonathan Chaves

We sail past a pine-tree forest on the river bank.
A man is walking where the trees end.
A mountain moves in front of the man, blocking our view.
The blue flag of a wine shop flutters in the wind.

translated by Jonathan Chaves

A year ago my boat, homeward bound,
moored at Yen-ling—
I was kept awake all night by the rain
beating against the sails.
Last night the rain fell on the thatched roof
of my house.
I dreamed of the sound of rain
beating against the sails.

translated by Jonathan Chaves

Stone cliffs and clumps of bamboo,
river pavilions and small towers—
the sound of the rapids clarifies the traveler’s dreams;
in the shadow of the lamp the poet’s sadness grows.

The first day of spring has vanished,
and soon the full-moon festival will pass.

What is making me unhappy,
making me knit my brow like this?

translated by Jonathan Chaves

Painted barrages like mountains floating on the water;
small boats like ducks avoiding the shore;
red banners, green canopies, the clang of gongs—
people everywhere, saying hello or saying goodbye.

translated by Jonathan Chaves

Here turtles and fish turn back,
and even the crabs are worried.
But for some reason poets risk their lives
to run these rapids and swirl past these rocks.

translated by Jonathan Craves

The poet must work with brush and paper,
but this is not what makes the poem.
A man doesn’t go in search of a poem—
the poem comes in search of him.

translated by Jonathan Chaves