Laudator Temporis Acti

Chūgan Engetsu (1300-1375), "Musing on Antiquity at Chin-lu," tr. Marian Ury, Poems of the Five Mountains An Introduction to the Literature of the Zen Monasteries, 2nd ed. (Ann Arbor: Center for Japanese Studies 1992 = Michigan Monograph Series in Japanese Studies, 10 ), p. 42, with her note:

Its great men pass on without cease, but the land is uncrushed, ungentled;
The Six Courts have crumbled utterly, but "the mountains and rivers abide."
The ancient sites of royal offices: merchants' and fishermen's dwellings;
The sounds that lingered from precious groves: woodsmen's and oxherds' songs.
The canyons are filled with endless clouds, constantly bearing rain;
On the Great River the winds are calmed, but waves still arise.
The fair beauties of those years — where are they now?
For the traveler from afar, in this vast view, how much to admire and to mourn!

Chin-lu, modern Nanking, had been a royal city during much of the Six Dynasties period. Line 2 contains a quotation from what is perhaps Tu Fu's best known poem. "Precious groves," literally trees of jade or jewel-trees, is a common metaphor for men of superior pure demeanor. The "Great River" is the Yangtze.

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