Chief Academician Son (翰長) Having Replied Again, I Matched the Rhymes and Sent It to Him孫翰長復和。次韻寄之。
古今作者雲紛紛。調戱草木騁豪氣。磨章琢句自謂奇。到人牙頰甘苦異。狀元詩獨窮芳腴。美如熊掌誰不嗜。玉皇召入蓬萊宮。揮毫吮墨銀臺裏。君材落落千丈松。攀附如吾類縈蘽。率然著出孺茶詩。豈意流傳到吾子。見之忽憶花溪遊。懷舊凄然爲酸鼻。品此雲峯未嗅香。宛如南國曾嘗味。因論花溪採茶時。官督家丁無老稚。瘴嶺千重眩手收。玉京萬里赬肩致。此是蒼生膏與肉。臠割萬人方得至。一篇一句皆寓意。詩之六義於此備。隴西居士眞狂客。此生已向糟丘寄。酒酣謀睡業已甘。安用煎茶空費水。破却千枝供一啜。細思此理眞害耳。知君異日到諫垣。記我詩中微有旨。焚山燎野禁稅茶。唱作南民息肩始。
Then and now the makers of verse are as thick as clouds, toying with plants and trees and making a show of their spirit. They grind their words and trim their lines and call themselves rare, but once it reaches another's mouth, the sweet and the bitter differ. Only the Senior Laureate's poem exhausts the fragrant and the rich, lovely as a bear's paw — who would not relish it? The Jade Emperor summoned you and brought you into the Penglai palace, and within the Silver Terrace (銀臺) you wield the brush and suck the ink. Your talent is a towering pine a thousand fathoms high, while one like me only clings to it like a tangled vine. I happened to turn out my "Poem on Yucha" — how could I have known it would be passed along and reach you? Seeing it, you thought at once of our outing at Hwagye (花溪), and longing for the old days your nose stung with sadness. This Unbong tea I have not even smelled, yet it is plainly like the taste I knew in the south. And if I go on to speak of the tea-picking at Hwagye: the government drove the able-bodied from house after house, sparing neither old nor young, and over a thousand folds of miasma-wrapped ridges they gathered it by hand in confusion, then bore it ten thousand li to the jade capital until their shoulders were raw. This is the fat and the flesh of the people; only by slicing up ten thousand of them does it arrive at last. Every piece and every line of yours has its meaning entrusted to it, and the six principles (六義) of poetry are complete here. The Recluse of Longxi (隴西居士) is truly a mad wanderer who has already lodged this life of his on the hill of wine lees. Tipsy with wine, coaxing sleep is sweet enough already — why brew tea and waste water to no purpose? To break a thousand branches to furnish a single mouthful: think this reason over well, and it is truly nothing but harm. I know that when you reach the Censorate (諫垣) in some later year you will remember there was an earnest meaning inside my poem: burn off the hills and fire the fields, forbid the tribute of tea, and open a beginning for the people of the south to rest their shoulders.
Interlinear notes 2
不與君同寮。故云。
I was not in the same office as you. That is why it is said so.
花溪。茶所產。君管記晉陽時往見。故來詩及之。
Hwagye is a place where tea is produced. You went there when you were Secretary (管記) of Jinyang (晉陽). That is why the poem you sent speaks of it.