Return to Nature IV
- Poetry of Tao Yuanming
Having long left hills and streams, how
I love to roam in woody place!
Coming with sons and nephews, now
Through hazels I see ruined trace.
I pace up and down on waste land
And find debris of dwellers old.
Marks of old wells and stoves still stand,
Dead branches are left in the cold.
I ask a woodman passing by,
If he knows who lived here before.
The woodman answers with a sigh,
"They are all dead and gone, no more."
Thirty years passed in town and court.
Everything has changed, it is true.
Life is a vision fair and short;
All will vanish into the blue.
Composed around 405 CE, this fourth poem in Tao Yuanming's "Returning to Dwell in Gardens and Fields" series reflects the poet's matured perspective after sustained reclusion. Through a journey with younger family members to abandoned ruins, Tao contemplates historical transitions and life's impermanence. While containing elegiac tones for the departed, the work ultimately reveals his philosophical understanding of life's illusory nature and ultimate return to emptiness—expressed with deceptively simple language that radiates profound wisdom.
久去山泽游，浪莽林野娱。
试携子侄辈，披榛步荒墟。
徘徊丘垄间，依依昔人居。
井灶有遗处，桑竹残杇株。
借问采薪者，此人皆焉如？
薪者向我言，死没无复余。
一世异朝市，此语真不虚。
人生似幻化，终当归空无。
- Why Chinese poems is so special?
- The most distinctive features of Chinese poetry are: concision- many poems are only four lines, and few are much longer than eight; ambiguity- number, tense and parts of speech are often undetermined, creating particularly rich interpretative possibilities; and structure- most poems follow quite strict formal patterns which have beauty in themselves as well as highlighting meaningful contrasts.
- How to read a Chinese poem?
- Like an English poem, but more so. Everything is there for a reason, so try to find that reason. Think about all the possible connotations, and be aware of the different possibilities of number and tense. Look for contrasts: within lines, between the lines of each couplet and between successive couplets. Above all, don't worry about what the poet meant- find your meaning.