xviii.—Actualities.
“Choosing plain words
To express simple thoughts,
Suddenly I happened upon a recluse,
And seemed to see the heart of Tao.
Beside the winding brook,
Beneath dark pine-trees’ shade,
There was one stranger bearing a faggot,
Another listening to the lute.
And so, where my fancy led me,
Better than if I had sought it,
I heard the music of heaven,
Astounded by its rare strains.”
xix.—Despondent
“A gale ruffles the stream
And trees in the forest crack;
My thoughts are bitter as death,
For she whom I asked will not come.
A hundred years slip by like water,
Riches and rank are but cold ashes,
Tao is daily passing away,
To whom shall we turn for salvation?
The brave soldier draws his sword,
And tears flow with endless lamentation;
The wind whistles, leaves fall,
And rain trickles through the old thatch.”
xx.—Form and Feature.
“After gazing fixedly upon expression and substance
The mind returns with a spiritual image,
As when seeking the outlines of waves,
As when painting the glory of spring.
The changing shapes of wind-swept clouds,
The energies of flowers and plants,
The rolling breakers of ocean,
The crags and cliffs of mountains,
All these are like mighty Tao,
Skilfully woven into earthly surroundings....
To obtain likeness without form,
Is not that to possess the man?”
xxi.—The Transcendental.
“Not of the spirituality of the mind,
Nor yet of the atoms of the cosmos,
But as though reached upon white clouds,
Borne thither by pellucid breezes.
Afar, it seems at hand,
Approach, ’tis no longer there;
Sharing the nature of Tao,
It shuns the limits of mortality.
It is in the piled-up hills, in tall trees,
In dark mosses, in sunlight rays....
Croon over it, think upon it;
Its faint sound eludes the ear.”
xxii.—Abstraction.
“Without friends, longing to be there,
Alone, away from the common herd,
Like the crane on Mount Hou,
Like the cloud at the peak of Mount Hua.
In the portrait of the hero
The old fire still lingers;
The leaf carried by the wind
Floats on the boundless sea.
It would seem as though not to be grasped,
But always on the point of being disclosed.
Those who recognise this have already attained;
Those who hope, drift daily farther away.”