Silently enjoying isolation,
I pull the rope of my door tighter
And bind firmly this cracked jar.
My spirit is tuned to the Spring-season;
At the fall of the year there is Autumn in my heart.
Thus imitating cosmic changes
My cottage becomes a Universe.
[Fourth Century A.D.]
Translation by Arthur Waley, 1946 (From: Chinese Poems, London and New York, Routledge, 2005, p. 89).
