"A Green Stream" by Wang Wei

Landscape by Wang Hui, Ching Dynasty

I have sailed the River of Yellow Flowers,

Borne by the channel of a green stream,

Rounding ten thousand turns through the mountains

On a journey of less than thirty miles...

Rapids hum over heaped rocks;

But where light grows dim in the thick pines,

The surface of an inlet sways with nut-horns

And weeds are lush along the banks.

...Down in my heart I have always been as pure

As this limpid water is...

Oh, to remain on a broad flat rock

And to cast a fishing-line forever!

Wang Wei, sometimes known as the Poet Buddha, lived from 701 to 761, in the Tang Dynasty.