Wen Fu 2: “Introspection” [文賦二] by Lu Ji [陆机] [w/ Audio]

Close your eyes and listen with care.
Turn all your attention inside.
Let your soul ride the Eight Borders
At a galloping stride.

Inner space brightens, becomes more
Compact, as one views the expanse.
Words pour forth to cleanse the soul,
As the Six Arts lend a fragrance.

Float, swim, and dive in the abyss,
Heedful for words as it all soaks in...
Sometimes the right word must be hooked,
And hauled up where it can be spoken.
But, other times, words are like birds,
That fly themselves out of the clouds,
To be downed by one swift arrow --
Quite willingly freed of their shrouds.

Mine for lines lost ages ago --
Rhymes unsung for ten centuries.
Thank tight buds for the sweet flowers
That they - soon enough - will be.

See past and present concurrently,
At once, touch mountain and sea.

The Original in Simplified Chinese:

其始也,皆收视反听,耽思傍讯,精骛八极,心游万仞。

其致也,情曈曨而弥鲜,物昭晣而互进。

倾群言之沥液,漱六艺之芳润。

浮天渊以安流,濯下泉而潜浸。

于是沈辞怫悦,若游鱼衔钩,而出重渊之深;
浮藻联翩,若翰鸟缨缴,而坠曾云之峻。

收百世之阙文,采千载之遗韵。

谢朝华于已披,启夕秀于未振。

观古今于须臾,抚四海于一瞬。

Discovery Distance [Free Verse]

Mountains are best viewed at a distance,
despite humanity's "closer is better" bias.

Up close, one is invariably in a cloud,
looking at an undifferentiated mass
of gray-white:
ice -- granite -- snow -- fog.

One may climb a mountain 
to see other mountains in the distance,
but standing eye-to-rock with a mountain
offers little spectacle & grandeur.

Massive things can be too close to see.

I wonder whether I'm also
 better viewed from a distance.

Not everything is.

Consider the opposite mistake:
People say things such as, 
"My Great White Whale is out there."

But Great White Whales are  
always found looking inward --
not out in the distance.