Here at the frontier, the leaves fall like rain. Although my neighbors are all barbarians, and you, you are a thousand miles away, there are still two cups at my table.


Ten thousand flowers in spring, the moon in autumn, a cool breeze in summer, snow in winter. If your mind isn't clouded by unnecessary things, this is the best season of your life.

~ Wu-men ~


Wednesday, March 19, 2014

The 300 Tang Dynasty Poems, #52: Returning at Night to Lumen Mountain

The Tang Dynasty was a high point of culture in ancient China. Especially esteemed were poems. 


Some of the best poems of that period have been collected into an anthology known as The 300 Tang Dynasty Poems. A online version of the anthology may be found here.


Meng Haoran
RETURNING AT NIGHT TO LUMEN MOUNTAIN

A bell in the mountain-temple sounds the coming of night.
I hear people at the fishing-town stumble aboard the ferry,
While others follow the sand-bank to their homes along the river.
...I also take a boat and am bound for Lumen Mountain --
And soon the Lumen moonlight is piercing misty trees.
I have come, before I know it, upon an ancient hermitage,
The thatch door, the piney path, the solitude, the quiet,
Where a hermit lives and moves, never needing a companion.
 

2 comments:

Paul said...

Our hermit/poet doesn't need "companion" but looks like he is thirst for COMPANIONS, as a fish is thirst for water when it is out of it. Likewise for us bloggers, we don't need "readers" but do need READERS...actually thirst for them too...:):)

Nice poem Rick.

Rick Matz said...

The Tang Dynasty Poems are really timeless aren't they? But then, that could probably be said of any real work of art.