I have wished a bird would fly away,
And not sing by my house all day;
Have clapped my hands at him from the door
When it seemed as if I could bear no more.
The fault must partly have been in me.
The bird was not to blame for his key.
And of course there must be something wrong
In wanting to silence any song.
It is autumn; not without,
But within me is the cold.
Youth and spring are all about;
It is I that have grown old.
Birds are darting through the air,
Singing, building without rest;
Life is stirring everywhere,
Save within my lonely breast.
There is silence: the dead leaves
Fall and rustle and are still;
Beats no flail upon the sheaves
Comes no murmur from the mill.
The clock will go slow
If you watch it, you know;
You must work right along and forget it.
So study your best
Till it's time for a rest,
The clock will go fast, if you let it!
The Chital at the watering hole
Has one single simple goal:
To drink its fill and then to scat
Before being eaten by some big cat.
Poetry is poignant and ornate;
Essays are deep and content-centric.
Stele entries are true to the essence;
Paeans, moving and melancholic.
Inscriptions are concise and kindly;
Telltales have a logic and cadence.
Odes show great grace and refinement;
Op-eds are unrepressed and intense.
Music 's penetrating and stately;
Speeches must sparkle with cleverness.
Though there ever so many forms,
All thwart evil and allow release:
Expression, sans pride overweening,
With no waste of words or lost meaning.
Original in Simplified Chinese:
诗缘情而绮靡，赋体物而浏亮。
碑披文以相质，诔缠绵而凄怆。
铭博约而温润，箴顿挫而清壮。
颂优游以彬蔚，论精微而朗畅。
奏平彻以闲雅，说炜晔而谲诳。
虽区分之在兹，亦禁邪而制放。
要辞达而理举，故无取乎冗长。
Drunk at night in Dongpo.
I sober, then drink once more;
I return at three A.M.
To hear boy's thunderous snores.
I knock but there's no answer --
Lean on my staff and listen
To water, and feel my regrets
As ripples in river glisten.
I could vanish in this boat,
And see out my life afloat.
Note: The Song Dynasty poet Su Shi [苏轼] was also known as Dongpo [東坡] or Zizhan [子瞻.]
In this short Life that only lasts an hour
How much - how little - is within our power
Smoke slowly rises from sodden woods;
Millet 's steamed to feed the fieldhands;
Egrets fly over foggy paddies;
Hidden birds sing from lush tree stand.
Mountain hikers study hibiscus,
Under dewy pines chew sunflower seeds,
Give mat space to any old traveler.
Gull and I: wary of each other's deeds.
Original Poem in Simplified Chinese:
积雨空林烟火迟， 蒸藜炊黍饷东菑。
漠漠水田飞白鹭， 阴阴夏木啭黄鹂。
山中习静观朝槿， 松下清斋折露葵。
野老与人争席罢， 海鸥何事更相疑？
Among ten thousand writing styles,
There's no one standard or measure.
The styles: many, muddled, and free --
Form, the unattainable treasure.
Talent in word-wrangling shows skill.
Idea conveyance shows craft.
Writers strive 'twixt have and have not --
Unyielding in shallow or deep draught.
An escape artist of fine lines --
Yet time and space consume in kind.
Intricacy excites the eye,
But frugality soothes the mind.
One of few words is not confined.
Verbose writers drift the Undefined.
The original in Simplified Chinese:
体有万殊，物无一量。
纷纭挥霍，形难为状。
辞程才以效伎，意司契而为匠。
在有无而黾勉，当浅深而不让。
虽离方而遯员，期穷形而尽相。
故夫夸目者尚奢，惬心者贵当。
言穷者无隘，论达者唯旷。
An old man in a lodge within a park;
The chamber walls depicted all around
With portraitures of huntsman, hawk,
and hound,
And the hurt deer. He listeneth to the
lark,
Whose song comes with the sunshine
through the dark
Of painted glass in leaden lattice bound;
He listeneth and he laugheth at the
sound,
Then writeth in a book like any clerk.
He is the poet of the dawn, who wrote
The Canterbury Tales, and his old age
Made beautiful with song; and as I read
I heard the crowing cock, I hear the note
Of lark and linnet, and from every page
Rise odors of ploughed field or flowery
mead.
Tiger Riding for Beginners 