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.”