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Buddhist
Taoist
4th Century

About T'ao Ch'ien

Timeline (365 - 427)

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English version by
David Hinton

Original Language
Chinese

After Liu Ch'ai-Sang's Poem

Themes
  Mountain
  Spring Blossom
  Water
  Wine
 

 

Recommended Books

The Selected Poems of T'ao Ch'ien, Translated by David Hinton
Sunflower Splendor: Three Thousand Years of Chinese Poetry, Edited by Wu-chi Liu / Edited by Irving Yucheng Lo

I'd long felt these mountains and lakes
beckoning, and wouldn't have thought twice,

but my family and friends couldn't bear
talk of living apart. Then one lucky day

a strange feeling came over me, and I left,
walking-stick in hand, for my western farm.

No one was going back home: on those outland
roads, farm after farm lay in empty ruins,

but our thatch hut's already good as ever,
and you'd think our new fields had been

tended for years. When valley winds turn
cold, spring wine eases hunger and work,

and though it isn't strong, just baby-girl
wine, it's better than nothing for worry.

Distant -- as months and years pass away here,
the bustling world's racket grows distant.

Plowing and weaving provide all we use.
Who needs anything more? Away, ever away

into this hundred-year life and beyond,
my story and I vanish together like this.

 

 

-- from The Selected Poems of T'ao Ch'ien, Translated by David Hinton

Amazon.com

 

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Ivan M. Granger's original poetry, stories and commentaries are Copyright © 2002 - 2008 by Ivan M. Granger.
All other material is copyrighted by the respective authors, translators and/or publishers.