In my golden cup, pure wine worth ten thousand a pint;
on a jade plate, fine food worth ten thousand coins.
I stop drinking and put down my chopsticks, unable to eat,
draw my sword to dance, look anxiously in all directions.
I want to cross the Yellow River, but ice blocks my way;
I want to climb Mount Taihang, but snow fills the sky.
In idleness I drop a hook into the azure creek,
suddenly I’m back in my boat, dreaming of distant places.
Traveling is hard!
Traveling is hard!
So many forks in the road–
which one to take?
A great enterprise must find the right moment;
I hoist my sail into the clouds and cross the mighty ocean.
- Li Bai
To wash and rinse our souls of their age-old sorrows,
We drained a hundred jugs of wine.
A splendid night it was . . . .
In the clear moonlight we were loath to go to bed.
But at last drunkenness overcame us;
And we laid ourselves down on the empty mountain,
The earth for pillow, and the great heaven for cover.
- Li Bai
The living is a passing traveler;
The dead, a man come home.
One brief journey between heaven and earth,
Then, alas! we are the same old dust of ten thousand ages.
The rabbit in the moon pounds the elixir in vain;
Fu-sang, the tree of immortality, has crumbled to kindling wood.
Man dies, his white bones are dumb without a word
While the green pines feel the coming of the spring.
Looking back, I sigh; looking before, I sigh again.
What is there to prize in the life's vaporous glory?
-Li Bai
If heaven loved not wine,
A Wine Star would not be in heaven;
If earth loved not wine,
The Wine Spring would not be on earth.
Since heaven and earth love wine,
Need a tippling mortal be ashamed?
The transparent wine, I hear,
Has the soothing virtue of a sage,
While the turgid is rich, they say,
As the fertile mind of the wise.
Both the sage and the wise were drinkers,
Why seek for peers among gods and goblins?
Three cups open the grand door to bliss;
Take a jugful, the universe is yours.
Such is the rapture found in wine,
That the sober shall never inherit.
- Li Bai
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