Hard Is the Way of the World（I）

Pure wine in golden cup costs ten thousand coppers, good!

Choice dish in a jade plate is worth as much, nice food!

Pushing aside my cup and chopsticks, I can’t eat;

Drawing my sword and looking round, I stamp my feet.

I can’t cross Yellow River: ice has stopped its flow;

I can’t climb Mount Taihang: the sky is blind with snow.

I can but poise a fishing pole beside a stream

Or set sail for the sun like a sage in a dream.

Hard is the way,

Hard is the way.

Don’t go astray!

Whither today?

A time will come to ride the wind and cleave the waves,

I’ll set my cloud-white sail and cross the sea which raves.