It is simply a wasteful thing
To build up the lofty pavilions
Towered above the clouds;
For nothing to mount mansions
Of hundreds of yards broadwise.
People cherish their lives,
But still they come
To go to their last long home.
They use to laugh at me,
Calling me a village bumpkin
Whose head slopes down
To be tied up with a rope
As if a Buddhist stupa upon a slope.
There is no use in listening to
The insolent greenhorns,
But why should I unquestioningly
Do what the olds as the hills
Tell me to do?
My kerchief made of birch bark
Has never been looked like
A high head-dress,
And my waistband is tight
To its extremity for very long now.
It’s not that I was born
In a wrong place or haven’t seized
On an opportune time,
But if you have no silver in cash,
You will hardly achieve success,
Wending your way through life.
As is fairly said, without means
Of subsistence you cannot do
Your duty well in the temple
Of your grand ancestors,
As only the haves can afford
To observe the ritual to the full.
If one day I have some money,
O man, I will set up
A seven-tiered pagoda
Nowhere else but on the top
Of my head to make them all
See it from afar to know exactly
What’s the true object of worship!
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Ron