Poetry Chaikhana
Sacred Poetry from Around the World

About T'ao Ch'ien

Timeline (365 - 427)

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English version by
Wu-chi Liu

Original Language
Chinese

Unsettled, a bird lost from the flock --

Themes

Birds

Bower

Garden

Night

Sound

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

Unsettled, a bird lost from the flock --
Keeps flying by itself in the dusk.
Back and forth, it has no resting place,
Night after night, more anguished its cries.
Its shrill sound yearns for the pure and distant --
Coming from afar, how anxiously it flutters!

It chances to find a pine tree growing all apart;
Folding its wings, it has come home at last.
In the gusty wind there is no dense growth;
This canopy alone does not decay.
Having fround a perch to roost on,
In a thousand years it will not depart.

-- from Sunflower Splendor: Three Thousand Years of Chinese Poetry, Edited by Wu-chi Liu / Edited by Irving Yucheng Lo

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Poetry Chaikhana Sacred Poetry from Around the World

About T'ao Ch'ien

Poetry Chaikhana
Sacred Poetry from Around the World