Nature
Sailing Homeward
Translated by Arthur Waley (1918) · From A Hundred and Seventy Chinese Poems (1918)
Cliffs that rise a thousand feet
Without a break,
Lake that stretches a hundred miles
Without a wave,
Sands that are white through all the year,
Without a stain,
Pine-tree woods, winter and summer
Ever-green,
Streams that for ever flow and flow
Without a pause,
Trees that for twenty thousand years
Your vows have kept,
You have suddenly healed the pain of a traveller’s heart,
And moved his brush to write a new song.
Cite this poem
MLA
Fang-shēng, Chan. “Sailing Homeward.” Translated by Arthur Waley. Poetry Codex, poetrycodex.com/poem/chan-fang-sheng/0/.
Chicago
Fang-shēng, Chan. “Sailing Homeward.” Translated by Arthur Waley. Poetry Codex. https://poetrycodex.com/poem/chan-fang-sheng/0/.