A Hundred and Seventy Chinese Poems/Sailing Homeward

by Chan Fang-shēng

SAILING HOMEWARD

By Chan Fang-shēng [fourth century A. D.]

Cliffs that rise a thousand feet
Without a break,
Lake that stretches a hundred miles
Without a wave,
Sands that are white through all the year,
Without a stain,
Pine-tree woods, winter and summer
Ever-green,
Streams that for ever flow and flow
Without a pause,
Trees that for twenty thousand years
Your vows have kept,
You have suddenly healed the pain of a traveller's heart,
And moved his brush to write a new song.