Tang Dynasty Poems, #35: Dwelling by a Stream

The Tang Dynasty is held to have been a golden age in Chinese culture. Art and poetry were esteemed.

No event was too small to not be commemorated with a poem. No homecoming or leaving taking, no celebration was complete without one.

The finest examples of Tang Dynasty poetry were complied into a famous anthology known as The 300 Tang Dynasty Poems, which can be found online here.

For now, here is number 35:

Liu Zongyuan

DWELLING BY A STREAM

I had so long been troubled by official hat and robe
That I am glad to be an exile here in this wild southland.
I am a neighbour now of planters and reapers.
I am a guest of the mountains and woods.
I plough in the morning, turning dewy grasses,
And at evening tie my fisher-boat, breaking the quiet stream.
Back and forth I go, scarcely meeting anyone,
And sing a long poem and gaze at the blue sky.