A valley claims my soul, the Willow laughs; at dusk, I turn to fields.
Who knows the subtle stir of seeds, the first faint signs?
I gaze at wild geese fading where the sky's edge ends.
To speak of deepest truths—
This turbid wine is fit for endless drownings.
Henceforth, I'll brew my own, from grain my own hands sow.
Alas, good and ill never align; fullness and void take turns.
Need Heaven ask if men perceive?
Look back—fifty-nine years of errors clear.
Like joy in dreams that wakes to grief.
The one-legged pities the centipede; the valley loses sheep—what difference in the end?
Hah!
Things dread their destined poverty.
The fox's rich fur, the leopard's spots—their beauty is their crime.
Wealth and rank are not my wish; in such haste, where would I go?
Now all sounds sink to silence; midnight moon bathes all.
My heart, stretching ten thousand miles, is clear as water.
Yet my spirit wanders free, returns to sit and face
The faint shores of Huai, the river's edge.
See how fish and birds, for a moment, lose themselves in joy.
Meeting them, I've forgotten cunning, forgotten self.
When have object and I ever stared each other down?
This is not the old debate on Hao's bridge—it's that I am not you.
But let the River God feel no shame before the Sea:
Great and small are water all the same.
In this world, how varied are the fits of joy and spite!
I smile, sir, at your thrice in office, thrice cast out.