300 Tang Dynasty Poems, #15: A GREEN STREAM

The Tang Dynasty was considered a golden age of culture in ancient China. Poetry was especially esteemed. If you click on the title of this post, you'll be directed to an online version of a famous anthology, The 300 Tang Dynasty Poems. Below is #15 ...

Five-character-quatrain
Wang Wei
A GREEN STREAM
I have sailed the River of Yellow Flowers,
Borne by the channel of a green stream,
Rounding ten thousand turns through the mountains
On a journey of less than thirty miles....
Rapids hum over heaped rocks;
But where light grows dim in the thick pines,
The surface of an inlet sways with nut-horns
And weeds are lush along the banks. ...
Down in my heart I have always been as pure
As this limpid water is....
Oh, to remain on a broad flat rock
And to cast a fishing-line forever!