It’s like boundless dream here in this
world, nothing anywhere to trouble us.

I have, therefore, been drunk all day,
a shambles of sleep on the fourth porch.

Coming to, I look into the courtyard.
There’s a bird among blossoms calling,

and when I ask what season this is,
an oriole’s voice drifts on spring winds.

Overcome, verging on sorrow and lament,
I pour another drink. Soon, awaiting

this bright moon, I’m chanting a song.
And now it’s over, I’ve forgotten why.

translated by David Hinton

Here, after wandering among these renowned
mountains, the heart grows rich with repose.

Why talk of cleansing elixirs of immortality?
Here, the world’s dust rinsed from my face,

I’ll stay close to what I’ve always loved,
content to leave that peopled world forever.

translated by David Hinton

Waking in the gallery
at dawn, and told it’s snowing,

I raise the blinds and gaze into pure good fortune.
Courtyard steps a bright mirage of distance,

kitchen smoke trails light through flurried skies,
and the cold hangs jewels among whitened grasses.

Must be heaven’s immortals in a drunken frenzy,
grabbing cloud and grinding it into white dust.

translated by David Hinton

Tangled grasses lie matted with death,
but generals keep at it. And for what?

Isn’t it clear that weapons are the tools of misery?
The great sages never waited until the need
for such things arose.

translated by David Hinton

I was just
shoving off
in my boat

when I heard
someone stomping
and singing on the shore!

Peach Blossom Lake
is a thousand feet deep

but it can’t compare
with Wang Lun’s love
or the way he said
goodbye

translated by David Young

Mountains set apart over the river,
two peaks face each other. Reflecting

chill colors of shoreline pine, waves
shatter apart into rock-torn bloom.

Heaven’s distance borders ragged, haze
beyond clear sky and flashed cloud,

the sun sinks, a boat far off leaving
as I turn my head, deep in azure mist.

translated by David Hinton

Thirty thousand feet of white hair . . . .
It seems grief began long ago,

and yet, in the bright mirror I wonder
where all this autumn frost came from.

translated by David Hinton

Long like autumn, all desolute silence,
Autumn River will return you to sorrow.

Unable to gauge this wanderer’s sorrow,
I climb Ta-lou Mountain to the east

and gaze west into Ch’ang-an distances.
Looking down at the river flowing past,

I call out to its waters: So how is it
you’ll remember nothing of me, and yet

you’d carry this one handful of tears
so very far—all the way to Yang-chou?

translated by David Hinton

Thoughts of you unending
here in Ch’ang-an,

crickets where the well mirrors year-end golds cry out
autumn, and under a thin frost, mats look cold, ice-cold.

My lone lamp dark, thoughts thickening, I raise blinds
and gaze at the moon. It renders the deepest lament

empty. But you’re lovely as a blossom born of cloud,

skies opening away all bottomless azure above, clear
water all billows and swelling waves below. Skies endless

for a spirit in sad flight, the road over hard passes
sheer distance, I’ll never reach you, even in dreams,

my ruins of the heart,
thoughts of you unending.

translated by David Hinton

Far away, I think of Wu Mountain light,
blossoms ablaze and a clear warm river.

Still here, something always keeping me
here, I face clouded southlands in tears.

Heartless as ever, spring wind buffeted
my dream, and your spirit startled away.

Unseen, you still fill sight. News is brief,
and stretching away, heaven never ends.

translated by David Hinton