紅塵有盡夢已稀

月下征人夜聽笛

兩鬢風蕭身萬里

一襲冷照霜滿衣

想來青山依舊在

歸去著我謝公屐

Lost within the confines of the secular world

My dreams are few and far between

Listening to the flute under the moon

Like a soldier on expedition

Accompanied by the desolate wind

Ten thousand miles away

Shrouded in the cold moonlight

My clothing white as snow

The green mountains must remain the same

When upon my return, I shall go hiking

Wearing pegged clogs like Master Xie*

* Master Xie refers to Xie Lingyun (385-433), one of the foremost Chinese poets of the Southern and Northern Dynasties and a famous practitioner of the Six Dynasties era poetry. Xie’s landscape poems are based on physical and intimate contact with the subject at hand. He toured the magnificent landscapes of Zhejiang with admirable enthusiasm, even designing a type of wooden clog with removable pegs for hiking up and down the mountains. When hiking upward, the pegs were placed underneath the rear part of the clog; when coming downward, the pegs were removed to the front to balance the height difference. People later called this type of clog "Master Xie's Clog".

Translated by Jennifer Zeng