Poetry Codex

Chinese & Japanese

T’ao Ch’ien

AD 365–427

T’ao Ch’ien (AD 365–427) gave up official life to farm his own land, and his poems of retirement, wine, poverty and the pleasure of a small house and garden are among the best loved in Chinese. Waley devoted a whole chapter of his 1918 anthology to him.

The poems here are Arthur Waley’s versions in A Hundred and Seventy Chinese Poems (1918), given with the poet’s name as spelled in those books.

Poems (22)

  1. Shady, shady the wood in front of the Hall
  2. In the quiet of the morning I heard a knock at my door
  3. A long time ago
  4. Substance, Shadow, and Spirit
  5. Chill and harsh the year draws to its close
  6. Blaming Sons
  7. I built my hut in a zone of human habitation
  8. Moving House
  9. Returning to the Fields
  10. Reading the Book of Hills and Seas
  11. Flood
  12. New Corn
  13. A Recluse
  14. A Prayer
  15. Sic Transit
  16. Once More Fields and Gardens
  17. On the Classic of the Hills and Sea
  18. Distaste for Official Life
  19. Reflections on the Past
  20. On returning to a Country Life
  21. The Five Sons
  22. The Poet-Beggar

See T’ao Ch’ien in the full archive →