I do not mind if my cottage is rather small So long as there's room enough for bed and mat. Often and often the neighbours come to see me And with br… - Tao Yuanming

In former days I wanted wine to drink; The wine this morning fills the cup in vain. I see the spring mead with its floating foam, And wonder when to taste of it again. The feast before me lavishly is spread, My relatives and friends beside me cry. I wish to speak but lips can shape no voice, I wish to see but light has left my eye. I slept of old within the lofty hall, Amidst wild weeds to rest I now descend. When once I pass beyond the city gate I shall return to darkness without end.

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.

Let us drink and enjoy together the wine you have brought:
For my course is set and cannot now be altered.