From spring-enraptured birds chirping lovesongs all day,
At times I must retreat for quiet inside my straw hut.
Ah, but how radiant with bright pinks glint the cherry trees!
And how lushleafed newdangle the willow boughs!
As morning's light, ascending, azures the peaked ridge,
Clouds, descending, rinse white wings in lakes of jade.
Who have dreamed, from the world's dust and flat,
That I'd one day climb Cold Mountain and be here now?
~Translated by Stanton Hager
