Master Jin Answered Again, so I Matched the Rhymes and Gave It to Him陳君復和。次韻贈之。

Of late I have received a great many fine works. His short pieces in the recent style are truly clear and outstanding, marvellous indeed; but since I could not tell how he would let his brush run free among the great rhymes of a long poem, I tried him with a long one. Now that I have received the new piece he has sent in answer, the writing sweeps along unhindered and stands truly outside heaven and earth and the six directions. I admire it greatly, greatly — what more is there to say?

On the altar of poetry he swallows the crowd of heroes, and once he puts out a strange line it startles men, makes ghosts weep, and topples heaven. Numinous jade, though hidden away, shoots its vapour into the void; I am afraid its essence will well up and its shadow be drawn aloft, to rise to heaven and become a rainbow of five colours. Reading it coolly washes away my drunkenness, and I would carve it on green jade and hand it down as a fine thing. Your poems do not merely make the words gallop; their intent is to have me sing in high spirits and drink deep, and not become a sour and chilly scholar. You say: if a life is so full of care that the brows are never unknit, what use was it to be born a man? There is no need to grieve over the water that flows east. I shall go straight to the summit of Kunlun, pour the river's waves out backwards, and shut up Fengyi (馮夷). In making poems, why chant painfully like an insect? And if in days to come half a page of my name is set down in the Accounts of the Garden of Letters (文苑傳), what does that add either? When you rise and dance, the moon follows your steps, and your mouth is fit for drinking wine, but when did it ever spit out right and wrong, good and bad? For me now, going and staying alike hang upon heaven; I am a brick of Qingzhou (靑州) that barely escaped being smashed and spat upon. My old friendships have withered and passed before my eyes, and sitting alone of late, with whom should I let my madness loose? Since late in the day I came to know this young gentleman, and after one laugh we spoke of our hearts, everywhere we draw each other along and begrudge the parting of hands. I cannot long endure the bonds of the world of men; how may I become, like a god roaming the eight poles, the great roc (大鵬) or the Xiyou bird (希有)? That Master Dongfang (東方生) — how was he a subject of the king? He was the essence of the Year Star (歲星) above. The immortals' peach (蟠桃), which fruits once in a thousand years, is numinous; and laughing to tread upon the Eastern Sea — how does that differ from hitching up one's skirt to cross a shallow? Have you not seen that the palaces of Penglai rise high, tier upon tier? Without the frame of an immortal there is no way to climb them. Not having perfected the golden elixir (金丹), how can I master this feeling of wistful gazing?