When I was young, I was out of tune with the herd, My only love was for the hills and mountains. Unwitting I fell into the Web of World's dust, And w… - Tao Yuanming

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When I was young, I was out of tune with the herd, My only love was for the hills and mountains. Unwitting I fell into the Web of World's dust, And was not free until my thirtieth year. The migrant bird longs for the old wood; The fish in the tank thinks of its native pool. I had rescued from wildness a patch of the Southern Moor And, still rustic, I returned to field and garden. My ground covers no more than ten acres; My thatched cottage has eight or nine rooms. Elms and willows cluster by the eaves; Peach trees and plum trees grow before the Hall. Hazy, hazy the distant hamlets of men; Steady the smoke that hangs over cottage roofs. A dog barks somewhere in the deep lanes, A cock crows at the top of the mulberry tree. At gate and courtyard—no murmur of the World's dust; In the empty rooms—leisure and deep stillness. Long I lived checked by the bars of a cage; Now I have turned again to Nature and Freedom.