Sunday, September 05, 2004

Okay here is another good one

(I finally found it, beeker)
Here are the first two of "Seven Poems of Joy Amid the Fields", also by Wang Wei.

I leave through the mass of gates and doors,
Passing among the villages to the north and south.
In the city hall, does the chatter have a point?
On Kongtong Mountain, who has unkempt hair?

When I return, you let me rule over a myriad households.
When I report before you, you give me a pair of jade plates.
But no! this keeps me from plowing the southern acres.
What is like that which lies high in the eastern view?

And the last of the seven:

Pouring wine, I may look down upon the brook.
Clutching a lute, I will lean against a tall pine.
In the southern field, the dew-covered sunflowers turn towards the dawn.
In the eastern valley, they will be grinding grain by nightfall.

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