Benevolent breezes intimately embrace pearly tea sprouts
I'm pretty sure my new coworkers are pleased with me. But, just in case, I have now secured my awesomeness with cookies. I brought them for my supervisors, but they shared them at the managers' meeting this morning, so I am now beloved by all the managers. Cookies are always a good way to win love at the library, I find. ;)
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The sun is as high as a ten-foot measure and five; I am deep asleep.
The general bangs at the gate loud enough to scare the Duke of Chou!
He announces that the Censor sends a letter; the white silk cover is triple stamped.
Breaking the vermillion seals, I imagine the Censor himself inspecting these three hundred moon-shaped tea cakes.
He heard that within the tea mountain a path was cut at the new year, sending insects rising excitedly on the spring wind.
As the emperor waits to taste Yang-hsien tea, the one hundred plants dare not bloom.
Benevolent breezes intimately embrace pearly tea sprouts, the early spring coaxing out buds of golden yellow.
Picked fresh, fired till fragrant, then packed and sealed: tea's essence and goodness is preserved.
Such venerable tea is meant for kings and nobles; how did it reach the hut of this mountain hermit?
The brushwood gate is closed against vulgar visitors; all alone, I don my gauze cap, brewing and tasting the tea.
Clouds of green yielding; unceasingly, the wind blows; radiantly white, floating tea froth congeals against the bowl.
The first bowl moistens my lips and throat.
The second bowl banishes my loneliness and melancholy.
The third bowl penetrates my withered entrails, finding nothing except a literary core five thousand scrolls.
The fourth bowl raises a light perspiration, casting life's inequities out through my pores.
The fifth bowl purifies my flesh and bones.
The sixth bowl makes me one with the immortal, feathered spirits.
The seventh bowl I need not drink, feeling only a pure wind rushing beneath my wings.
Where are the immortal isles of Mount P'eng-lai? I, Master Jade Stream, wish instead to ride this pure wind back
To the tea mountain where other immortals gather to oversee the land, protecting the pure, high places from wind and rain.
Yet, how can I bear knowing the bitter fate of the one hundred, the ten thousand, the hundred thousand peasants toiling beneath the tumbled tea cliffs!
I have but to ask the Censor about them; whether they can ever regain some peace.
~ "Writing Thanks to Censor Meng for Sending New Tea" by Lu T'ung
(trans. by Steven D. Owyoung)
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This entry was originally posted at http://winkingstar.dreamwidth.org/273315.html.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
The sun is as high as a ten-foot measure and five; I am deep asleep.
The general bangs at the gate loud enough to scare the Duke of Chou!
He announces that the Censor sends a letter; the white silk cover is triple stamped.
Breaking the vermillion seals, I imagine the Censor himself inspecting these three hundred moon-shaped tea cakes.
He heard that within the tea mountain a path was cut at the new year, sending insects rising excitedly on the spring wind.
As the emperor waits to taste Yang-hsien tea, the one hundred plants dare not bloom.
Benevolent breezes intimately embrace pearly tea sprouts, the early spring coaxing out buds of golden yellow.
Picked fresh, fired till fragrant, then packed and sealed: tea's essence and goodness is preserved.
Such venerable tea is meant for kings and nobles; how did it reach the hut of this mountain hermit?
The brushwood gate is closed against vulgar visitors; all alone, I don my gauze cap, brewing and tasting the tea.
Clouds of green yielding; unceasingly, the wind blows; radiantly white, floating tea froth congeals against the bowl.
The first bowl moistens my lips and throat.
The second bowl banishes my loneliness and melancholy.
The third bowl penetrates my withered entrails, finding nothing except a literary core five thousand scrolls.
The fourth bowl raises a light perspiration, casting life's inequities out through my pores.
The fifth bowl purifies my flesh and bones.
The sixth bowl makes me one with the immortal, feathered spirits.
The seventh bowl I need not drink, feeling only a pure wind rushing beneath my wings.
Where are the immortal isles of Mount P'eng-lai? I, Master Jade Stream, wish instead to ride this pure wind back
To the tea mountain where other immortals gather to oversee the land, protecting the pure, high places from wind and rain.
Yet, how can I bear knowing the bitter fate of the one hundred, the ten thousand, the hundred thousand peasants toiling beneath the tumbled tea cliffs!
I have but to ask the Censor about them; whether they can ever regain some peace.
~ "Writing Thanks to Censor Meng for Sending New Tea" by Lu T'ung
(trans. by Steven D. Owyoung)
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
This entry was originally posted at http://winkingstar.dreamwidth.org/273315.html.