At Maam I Gathered Guests and Friends, Grew Very Drunk, Came Home at Night and Set Down What I Had Seen, to Give to the Gentlemen of the Local School馬巖會賓友。大醉夜歸。記所見。贈鄕校諸君。
去國魂頻斷。還鄕歲半徂。拍天波蒼茫。遶郭路縈紆。縣脈依山盡。民風逐地殊。初疑遊鄠社。漸訝入湘吳。沙戶魚爲稅。畋師鹿作租。水荷欹競倚。松蔓倒相扶。野艇蓴鱸興。仙裝竹鶴圖。遠村聞吠犬。古壁吊飢鼯。兀兀詩成癖。昏昏酒泥愚。村羹烹土卵。客俎猒山膚。細愛子腰棗。香貪兒臂菰。雪回看楚舞。珠碎聽巴歈。劇飮膓應腐。狂呼膽益麤。俗淳無毀譽。正合着癯儒。
Leaving the capital, my spirit broke again and again; come home to my village, half a year has gone. Waves that slap at the sky stretch vast and dim; the road that girdles the walls winds and twists. The county's veins run out along the hills; the people's ways differ as the land does. At first I thought I was roaming the villages of Hu (鄠); little by little I wonder if I have entered Xiang (湘) and Wu (吳). The sand-village households pay their tax in fish; the hunters render their rent in deer. The lotus on the water leans and jostles to lean again; the pine creepers hang upside down and hold each other up. In a field skiff there is the delight of water-shield and perch; the hermit's garb is a picture of bamboo and crane. From a far village I hear a dog barking; at an old wall I mourn a starving flying squirrel. Sunk in thought, poetry has become my affliction; muddled and dim, I am a fool mired in wine. In the village broth they boil taro; on the guests' chopping board one tires of mountain greens. Small and lovely are the jujubes pinched like a waist; fragrant and coveted are the water-oat shoots like a child's forearm. As though snow were whirling, I watch the dances of Chu; as though pearls were shattering, I hear the songs of Ba (巴). Drinking hard, my bowels must be rotting; shouting like a madman, my gall grows coarser still. The ways here are simple, with no slander and no praise — truly a fit place for a gaunt scholar to settle.