Liu Zongyuan (柳宗元)

A hundred and twenty paces west of the knoll, across the bamboos and bushes I heard with delight a gurgling like the sound made by jade bracelets. So I cut a path through the bamboos till I came upon a small pool of clear water. The bottom was of rock and a spring gushed out from the boulders near the bank. Rocks formed little islets and crags, overhung by green trees and vines which were growing in great profusion. There were about a hundred fish in the tarn, and they seemed to be gliding through empty space without support. In the sunlight which reached the bottom, casting shadows over the rocks, the fish would stay for a while motionless then suddenly dart far away. They scudded to and fro, as if sharing the visitors' delight.

Looking southwest in the chequered sunlight at the jagged, serpentine shore, you could not see the whole.

I sat by this tarn, with bamboos and trees all round me, in utter silence and solitude. The seclusion and quiet cast a chill over me; and the scene was one of such purity that I could not stay there long. So I marked the spot and left.

With me were Wu Wuling, Gong Gu, and my brother Zongxuan. And two of the Cui boys, Shuyi and Fengyi, had accompanied us to help us.

A hundred mountains and no bird,

A thousand paths without a footprint;

A little boat, a bamboo cloak,

An old man fishing in the cold river-snow.

At this lofty tower where the town ends, wilderness begins;

And our longing has as far to go as the ocean or the sky....

Hibiscus-flowers by the moat heave in a sudden wind,

And vines along the wall are whipped with slanting rain.

Nothing to see for three hundred miles but a blur of woods and mountain --

And the river's nine loops, twisting in our bowels....

This is where they have sent us, this land of tattooed people --

And not even letters, to keep us in touch with home.

An old fisherman spent the night here, under the western cliff;

He dipped up water from the pure Hsiang and made a bamboo fire;

And then, at sunrise, he went his way through the cloven mist,

With only the creak of his paddle left, in the greenness of mountain and river.

...I turn and see the waves moving as from heaven,

And clouds above the cliffs coming idly, one by one.