The east wind flies with drizzling rain,
Washing away the dust from peach and plum.
A swift horse with purple reins I gain,
To view the Golden Essence spring, I come.
The continuous woods, their emerald air, mysteriously still,
Now and then form Buddha's hair-knots, spirals blue on the hill.
Sheer cliffs, as if carved, rise steep and high,
Where ten thousand men could camp, with banners to the sky.
Vast and yawning, open wide,
Towering and massed, side by side.
Crouching ones are tigers or leopards, bold,
Lofty ones are city walls, ancient and cold.
An old gibbon, for a thousand years, learns spring's song,
While dragon-thunder hides in tree shade all day long.
Below Lotus Peak, the path has long been lost,
Yet now and then a woodcutter climbs, by vines embossed.
Cinnabar light leaks from the house, with water's drip,
A white crane flies away, to perch in peach groves deep.
The peaches, how many ripe? The boughs are still green.
Stone fields and jade seeds, no dragon ploughs the scene.
Clouds steam the pot-belly, blue grains cooked through,
Snow freezes the earth's bones, yellow essence hid from view.
The Divine Lord long ago whipped his jade kylin steed,
Now serves as a high minister in Heaven, indeed.
Before the cliff, old bamboo often bears rice,
At night, a stone dog barks on the steps, not once or twice.
I too, in three lives, have dwelt by the Stone Drum,
Flowers fall and bloom, I know not how many, in sum.
In the mortal world, fishing foam blows on Qin's bridge,
In vain are names carved in the cavern, on the ridge.
Let me try to find a cup of water for the Divine Lord,
From which a blue dragon rises in broad day, by the ford.
Then let purple mist give birth to wind and thunder's might,
Soaring straight up ninety thousand li in flight.