Chu Yün-ming (1460–1526)
This oriental country, year after year,
sends its long-journeying ships;
presenting a tribute of wind and moonlight,
they come to China.
I trust you will not view this as some trifling affair:
the world now is a single family.
Translated by Jonathan Chaves
Chu Yün-ming is recognized as the most important calligrapher of the Ming period. His verse owes much to the expressive diction of T’ang poetry, but possibly even more to the unostentatious depiction of everyday life characteristic of Sung poetry.