A sage at ease beneath a spreading tree
Complete with learned scroll and line and hook,
Some pomegranates and a pot of rice
A beaker and a flagon;
Before him slowly flows a tiny brook,
Behind him lurks among slim bamboo shoots
A lizard maybe or maybe a dragon.
For twice a thousand years he has sat so
Or even more, and thought on thought, or nought
Weighing the infinite of mere man’s nonentity,
Letting the years slip past his unbaited hook;
His scroll is still unrolled,
And still rolls on the tiny brook.
Never a breeze has ruffled herb or tree;
Ripe pomegranates and a pot of rice
Are still in hand; beaker and flagon
Offer as ever potent consolation;
The scroll is still unrolled, the brook rolls on,
And bright-eyed, still, among green bamboo shoots
A lizard lurks or maybe it’s a dragon.
As I consider this contented sage
I wish that he were I or I were he,
Prisoners exchanged, a sane to a mad age.
No, that’s not fair; I would not wish that he
Should lose such golden calm to take my place,
Blown out of blissful quiet to endure
The misery of our distraught humanity:
I could not bear to see fade from his face
The contemplative calm of days gone by.
And so instead of such exchange I’ll wish
To step into the picture, sit with him
Complete as he with rod and line, and fish,
Fish patiently with neither bait nor hook
Idly and endlessly in the tiny brook,
The tiny brook that slips so quietly
Across the picture by the tasselled scroll
Heavy with wisdom he’s not cared to unroll
Complete with pomegranates and a pot of rice,
Beaker and flagon, is his paradise.
I’ll choose to share with him that joke that he
In every smiling wrinkle seems to be
Savouring, and from deep-carven wrinkles it appears
Has been enjoying for two thousand years.
1952