On Discussing Poetry論詩說
予昔讀梅聖兪詩。私心竊薄之。未識古人所以號詩翁者。及今閱之。外若芣弱。中含骨鯁。眞詩中之精雋也。知梅詩然後可謂知詩者也。但古人以謝公詩池塘生春草爲警策。予未識佳處。徐凝瀑布詩一條界破靑山色。則予擬其佳句。然東坡以爲惡詩。由此觀之。予輩之爲詩。其不及古人遠矣。又陶潛詩。恬淡和靜。如淸廟之瑟。朱絃疏越。一唱三嘆。予欲效其體。終不得其髣髴。尤可笑已。
Long ago I read the poems of Mei Shengyu (梅聖兪) and in my heart secretly made light of them, not knowing why the men of old called him the Old Man of Poetry (詩翁). Looking at them again now, outwardly they seem soft and frail, yet within they hold a firm bone; truly they are the finest and choicest among poems. Only after one knows Mei's poems can one be said to know poetry.
Yet the men of old took for the telling stroke (警策) the line of Lord Xie (謝公), 「On the pond's dyke spring grass is growing」, and I cannot see where its excellence lies. The line in Xu Ning's (徐凝) poem on the waterfall, 「A single strand has cut apart the blue of the mountain」, I took for a fine line, but Dongpo (東坡) called it a bad poem. Seeing by this, we who make poems fall far short of the men of old.
Again, the poems of Tao Qian (陶潛) are placid and harmonious and still, like the zither of the clear ancestral shrine, which keeps its red strings sparse, so that one man sings and three sigh in answer. I wished to take their body for my model, but in the end I could not come even near it; the more laughable it is.