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.
When the green woods laugh with the voice of joy, And the dimpling stream runs laughing by; When the air does laugh with our merry wit, And the green hill laughs with the noise of it;
When the meadows laugh with lively green, And the grasshopper laughs in the merry scene, When Mary and Susan and Emily With their sweet round mouths sing 'Ha, Ha, He!'
When the painted birds laugh in the shade, Where our table with cherries and nuts is spread, Come live & be merry, and join with me, To sing the sweet chorus of 'Ha, Ha, He!'
a meandering melody hijacked my bliss track and, as I drifted in the void, my spine straightened, my breath slowed, and I tumbled -- for a time -- through eternity.
I left Baidi amid ochre clouds -- Crossed a thousand li by day's end. Monkeys howled and chased along each bank; My skiff slipped past ten thousand mountains.
The original in Simplified Chinese:
朝辞白帝彩云间 千里江陵一日还 两岸猿声啼不住 轻舟已过万重山
Note: this is poem #269 of the 300 Tang Poems [唐詩三百首.]
Tiger Riding for Beginners 