The old scroll is enriched

With the brilliant poems of remote times;

My pot is flushed with the brew wine

I’ve made from the fruits that I picked

In the grove of the eighteen divines.

Walking around, I delight

In watching the wild deer’s calves;

Sitting down, I keep them close to my thighs;

Some of them cling to the left of my side,

Some of them to the right.

Frost and dew come thru my thatched brims;

The moon's disk shines through the hole

In my earthen pitcher for a long time.

At such hours as these,

I use to sip slowly a couple of cups,

Reciting my verses—a round number,

Just as they cross my mind.

If you want to know

What my poems are all about,

They depict the human lives,

One hundred and twenty years long,

In which a true sympathy

Is alike a wild deer—it always set to flee

In the thickets while an angry look

Can be likened to a bandog—

Even if you banish it from sight,

It won’t run away, sticking to both your sides.

Once you decide to subjugate

The naughty ape, your inflated self,

It’s best to start from listening to

The lion’s roar of your pure mind!