Sent to Vice Minister Yi寄李侍郞
予旣退居。百念灰冷。唯未去詩中餘債。偶得長句一篇。以寓樂道送老之意。末句有趁春遊賞之約。幸肯而勿忽也。
Living in retirement, all my thoughts have cooled to ashes, yet the one debt I still owe to poetry I have not been able to shake off. Chancing upon a single long poem, I have set in it my wish to delight in the Way and see out my old age. In the closing lines there is a promise to go roaming after the spring; pray accept it and do not make light of it.
Interlinear notes 1
需。○幷序○織錦體。
Su (需). ○With a preface. ○In the brocade-weave form (織錦體).
殘年幸逸鳥深棲。適意隨情任景西。歡劇祗憂無酒飮。債餘猶負有詩題。觀心正契空空了。味道眞融物物齊。冠弁斂還藏篋樻。蓏苽培欲理田畦。丹心暗動芳桃艶。綠眼微攢細柳低。官退始宜謀醉倒。看花好約一壺提。
In my remaining years I am luckily at ease, like a bird nested deep Following my feelings as they suit me, I let the sun sink to the west When pleasure is at its height I worry only that there be no wine to drink And for the debt still left I carry titles of poems yet to be made Looking into my mind, it fits exactly with "empty and empty again" Tasting the Way, I truly melt into the evenness of all things My cap and hat I have put away back in their box And I mean to bank up the cucumber vines and tend the furrows Red at heart, I am secretly stirred by the lovely hue of the peach blossoms Green-eyed in welcome, my gaze gathers lightly where slender willows droop low Now that I have left office it is fitting to plan on drinking myself down So when we go to see the flowers let us promise to carry a wine flask along
Interlinear notes 1
丹心·綠眼 — This piece is in the brocade-weave form, which sets color characters at the head of the lines, so the original matched them with "red" (丹) and "green" (綠). 綠眼, green eyes, is a look of welcome, like Ruan Ji's "blue eyes" (靑眼). — translator