Lao-zi had his good teacher,
But did not have any students;
Confucius had no teacher,
But had three thousand pupils.

Confucius came
To see the elder master,
Lao-zi met him with a goose
Held under his arm.

When asked the meaning,
Lao-zi laughed before the comer,
A thin, shrill, yet cataclysmic laughter
On the threshold of the fall of empire.

He had been a bachelor all his life,
Otherwise, he could not have laughed
So roguishly. Confucius had his wife
And son, hence a huge tree of progeny.

But Lao-zi’s last coughs of laughter
Were caught up by another sage of laugh
And a little bit irony named Zhuang-zi
And he, being younger, had a richer cough. . .

And the ring of his laughter has echoed
Throughout the ages, until nowadays,
When sarcasm and ridicule rock the cradle,
Rule the world, and lay it on still thicker.