A thing from Eastern Sea, the world's most grand,
All spirits joined to grow this wondrous pine.
Heaven's essence, earth's quintessence, gather 'neath its stand,
A hundred streams from azure deeps in confluence combine.
One root drives straight down, piercing the nether ground,
Another slants into the leviathan's deep lair.
The far ones press and break the giant turtle's mound,
The near ones twist and coil, making mountain roots veer.
Small boughs could bend a thousand-catty bow,
Large boughs could hang a ten-thousand-hu bell.
Only the aged trunk defies description now—
Like black dragons heaped where Lü Guang's troops did dwell.
Clad in the North God's armor, tough rhinoceros hide,
Tiger warriors linking arms can't gird it round.
No scheme can wholly shield the earth beside,
Its intent is to sweep all floating clouds from the ground.
Twisted branches dive to earth, then spiral high,
Grotesque and wondrous, no single form they keep.
Hills and valleys change, let past and present by,
Earth and wood, two lines, rule sovereigns in their sweep.
Banners left in vain at Wei River's old wall,
The Sui camp where troops were feasted still remains.
Black ants come to shake its towering parasol,
Green fish leap into its vast and verdant rains.
Most of all, when midnight storms their clamor spread,
Mountain sprites flee, river demons start in dread.
Like a hundred thousand lancers, iron spears outspread,
Or countless dark-flag troops in battle arrayed.
Sometimes, when ocean waves grow calm and slight,
A strain of fairy music drifts from Peng Isle.
Fading notes chase the stream, a scattered zither's flight,
Echoes pierce clouds, gathering birds that sing the while.
Since Chaos died, how many dynasties have passed?
Yet traces of clear and turbid breaths still last.
A single leaf towers—a new phoenix's crest,
Twin boughs unite—where an old dragon found its rest.
Its origin distinct, its deeds are rare,
Virtue that can contain, talent to spare.
Great roc and tiny quail both find a dwelling there,
Forgetting each other like fish in rivers fair.
How splendid, this tree, truly beyond compare,
With wisdom 'scapes the axe's idle stare.
Passed by all master craftsmen, useless deemed,
Zhuangzi would see it as the unfit, it seemed.
Great pine, great pine, so marvelous and odd,
The square carriage, round canopy—unknown to man.
Yin-yang, mountain-sea breaths join and part, by god,
Or else some divine force must shield it, if it can.