to the world's end;
Flesh and bone all in distant ways.
From my native-place no tidings come;
Rebel troops flood the land with war.
Sullen grief, in the end, what will it bring?
I am only wearing my own heart away.
Better far to let both body and mind
Blindly yield to the fate that Heaven made.
Hsuun-yang abounds in good wine;
I will fill my cup and never let it be dry.
On Pen1 River fish are cheap as mud;
Early and late I will eat them, boiled and fried.
With morning rice at the temple under the hill,
And evening wine at the island in the lake ...
Why should my thoughts turn to my native land?
For in this place one could well end one's age.

[32] VISITING THE HSI-LIN TEMPLE

[_Written during his exile_]

I dismount from my horse at the Hsi-lin Temple;
I throw the porter my slender riding-whip.
In the morning I work at a Government office-desk;
In the evening I become a dweller in the Sacred Hills.
In the second month to the north of Kuang-lu
The ice breaks and the snow begins to melt.
On the southern plantation the tea-plant thrusts its sprouts;
Through the northern sluice the veins of the spring ooze.

* * * * *

This year there is war in An-hui,
In every place soldiers are rushing to arms.
Men of learning have been summoned to the Council Board;
Men of action are marching to the battle-line.
Only I, who have no talents at all,
Am left in the mountains to play with the pebbles of the stream.

[33] PROSE LETTER TO YUUAN CHEN1

[_A.D. 818_]

Night of the tenth day of the fourth month. Lo-t`ien[1] says: O
Wei-chih,[2] Wei-chih, it is three years since I saw your face and
almost two years since I had a letter from you. Is man's life so long
that he can afford such partings? Much less should hearts joined by glue
be set in bodies remote as Hu and Yuueh.[3] In promotion we could not be
together; and in failure we cannot forget each other. Snatched and
wrenched apart, separately each of us grows grey. O Wei-chih, what is to
be done? But this is the work of Heaven and there is no use in speaking
of it.

When I first arrived at Hsuun-yang, Hsiung Ju-teng1[4] came with the
letter which you had written the year before, when you were so ill.
First you told me of the progress of your illness, next of your feelings
while you were ill and last you sp