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

I built my house near where others dwell, And yet there is no clamour of carriages and horses. You ask of me "How can this be so?" "When the heart is far the place of itself is distant." I pluck chrysanthemums under the eastern hedge, And gaze afar towards the southern mountains. The mountain air is fine at evening of the day And flying birds return together homewards. Within these things there is a hint of Truth, But when I start to tell it, I cannot find the words.

I would gladly wander in Paradise,
But it is far away and there is no road.

Let me then remember, to calm my heart's distress,
That the Sages of old were often in like case.