A sea breeze blows the clear autumn air,
Forest leaves rustle, already falling.
At the mountain’s crest emerges a high terrace,
Dimly visible in the vast expanse.
Companions indeed keep this secluded date,
Tiered pavilions overlook the suburbs.
The outriders’ calls echo through cliff and valley,
Sedan chairs wind through sparse woods.
This place already lies desolate,
These people of old are silent and remote.
Their writings and traces not yet worn away,
Mountains and rivers seem just as yesterday.
A painted screen shows clusters of peaks,
Dark and light properly interwoven.
Mist and clouds roll up and down,
Suddenly like lifting a green curtain.
Lotus blooms, green and spreading,
Eyebrows slender, clear and graceful.
Tall pines, unknowing of their years,
Rise up, standing broad and mighty.
A host of dragons soar into the empty sky,
Angrily contending, snatching and grasping.
Thick bamboos and creeping vines,
Axe and hatchet lightly trim them.
Deep places may hide snakes and insects,
At dusk only birds and sparrows perch.
Two nanmu trees are most unrestrained,
Before the pavilion, fit for leaning on.
Their branches and trunks late‑greening,
How often they brave wind and frost’s harshness.
Even more I pity the folk below the hill,
Who peculiarly gain the mountain’s joy.
They till fields, irrigate mountain streams,
To ward off age, dig mountain yams.
Glory and shame are only accidental,
Human life is like a game of chance.
I’ve wasted years, mistaken in official rank,
My true aspiration lies in hills and valleys.
I wish to learn from the old man before the mountain,
Withdraw my body to plowing and delving.