Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, RETURNING TO THE FIELDS, by T'AO CH'IEN


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

RETURNING TO THE FIELDS, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: When I was young, I was out of tune with the herd
Last Line: Now I have turned again to nature and freedom.
Alternate Author Name(s): T'ao Yuan-ming; Tao Yuanming; Tao Qian
Variant Title(s): Returning To The Village
Subject(s): China - Early Period (to 200 B.c.); China - Middle Ages (600 B.c.- 618 A.d.); Freedom; Liberty


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 the 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 of the half-deserted village,
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.





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