Ah, make nature your home; Be true and be unchained. Enrichment by control Can never be sustained. Build your hut in the pines: Toss your hat and read verse. Know the dawn from the dusk, But not time -- cradle to hearse. If your life suits you well Why must you strive and strain? If you're unbound as sky, This style you have attained.
NOTE: The late Tang Dynasty poet, Sikong Tu (a.k.a. Ssŭ-k‘ung T‘u,) wrote an ars poetica entitled Twenty-Four Styles of Poetry. It presents twenty-four poems that are each in a different tone, reflecting varied concepts from Taoist philosophy and aesthetics. Above is a crude translation of the fifteenth of the twenty-four poems. This poem’s Chinese title is 疏野 and it has been translated as “Seclusion” [Giles,] “The Carefree and Wild Style” [Barnstone / Ping,] as well as, “Unrestricted,” “Seclusion,” and “Sparse Wilderness.”
In placid hours well-pleased we dream Of many a brave unbodied scheme. But form to lend, pulsed life create, What unlike things must meet and mate: A flame to melt -- a wind to freeze; Sad patience -- joyous energies; Humility -- yet pride and scorn; Instinct and study; love and hate; Audacity -- reverence. These must mate, And fuse with Jacob's mystic heart, To wrestle with the angel -- Art.
Dawn rain has washed the city of its dust; The refreshed hotel willows tremble in a gust. My friendly advice, you dry up another glass, You have no acquaintance beyond The Jade Gate Pass.
Men say they know many things; But lo! they have taken wings, -- The arts and sciences, And a thousand appliances; The wind that blows Is all that any body knows.
Tiger Riding for Beginners 