Wednesday, April 13, 2011
At Last I Have Found Myself
T'ao Ch'ien (365-427), Returning to the Place I Was Born (tr. Kenneth Rexroth):
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From my youth up I never liked the city.More translations of this exquisite poem in earlier blog posts:
I never forgot the mountains where I was born.
The world caught me and harnessed me
And drove me through dust, thirty years away from home.
Migratory birds return to the same tree.
Fish find their way back to the pools where they were hatched.
I have been over the whole country,
And have come back at last to the garden of my childhood.
My farm is only ten acres.
The farm house has eight or nine rooms.
Elms and willows shade the back garden.
Peach trees stand by the front door.
The village is out of sight.
You can hear dogs bark in the alleys,
And cocks crow in the mulberry trees.
When you come through the gate into the court
You will find no dust or mess.
Peace and quiet live in every room.
I am content to live here the rest of my life.
At last I have found myself.
