By Wang Wei, Translated by Witter Bynner and Kiang Kang-hu, In the slant of the sum on the countryside, Cattle and sheep are trailing home And a rugged old man in a thatch.door Leans on a staff and thinks of the cowherd.
There are whirring pheasants, full wheatears, Silk-worms asleep, thin mul berry leaves, And farmers returning, with hoes en their shoulders, Who greet one another familiarly. jAnd that's why I envy the life of a hermit And wistfully sing the song, Why not go back?* *From the Confucian Book of Poems.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.