Tang Dynasty Poems, #23: A BOAT IN SPRING ON RUOYA LAKE

The Tang Dynasty was a Golden Age of Culture in China. Art, especially Poetry, was revered.

During the Tang Dynasty, no occasion was too small or mundane to merit a poem. I mentioned this to a friend once, who responded, "what a lovely way to live."

Thinking about yesterday's post, maybe we could learn something from them.

If you click on the title of this post, you'll be directed to an online version of the famous anthology, The 300 Tang Dynasty Poems.

If not poetry, maybe we should take a page from the Ming Dynasty scholar, Li Ri Hua who said:

One should clean out a room in one's home and place only a tea table and a chair in the room with some boiled water and fragrant tea. Afterwards, sit salutarily and allow one's spirit to become tranquil, light, and natural.

#23 A BOAT IN SPRING ON RUOYA LAKE

Five-character-ancient-verse

Qiwu Qian

A BOAT IN SPRING ON RUOYA LAKE

Thoughtful elation has no end:
Onward I bear it to whatever come.
And my boat and I, before the evening breeze
Passing flowers, entering the lake,
Turn at nightfall toward the western valley,
Where I watch the south star over the mountain
And a mist that rises, hovering soft,
And the low moon slanting through the trees;
And I choose to put away from me every worldly matter
And only to be an old man with a fishing-pole.