Page:A history of Chinese literature - Giles.djvu/142

 130 CHINESE LITERATURE

pure enjoyment of the family circle I will pass my days, cheering my idle hours with lute and book. My hus- bandmen will tell me when spring-time is nigh, and when there will be work in the furrowed fields. Thither I shall repair by cart or by boat, through the deep gorge, over the dizzy cliff, trees bursting merrily into leaf, the streamlet swelling from its tiny source. Glad is this renewal of life in due season; but for me, I rejoice that my journey is over. Ah, how short a time it is that we are here ! Why then not set our hearts at rest, ceasing to trouble whether we remain or go ? What boots it to wear out the soul with anxious thoughts ? I want not wealth ; I want not power ; heaven is beyond my hopes. Then let me stroll through the bright hours as they pass, in my garden among my flowers ; or I will mount the hill and sing my song, or weave my verse beside the limpid brook. Thus will I work out my allotted span, content with the appointments of Fate, my spirit free from care."

The " Peach-blossom Fountain " of Tao Ch'ien is a well-known and charming allegory, a form of literature much cultivated by Chinese writers. It tells how a fisher- man lost his way among the creeks of a river, and came upon a dense and lovely grove of peach-trees in full bloom, through which he pushed his boat, anxious to see how far the grove extended.

" He found that the peach-trees ended where the water began, at the foot of a hill ; and there he espied what seemed to be a cave with light issuing from it. So he made fast his boat, and crept in through a narrow entrance, which shortly ushered him into a new world of level country, of fine houses, of rich fields, of fine pools, and of luxuriance of mulberry and bamboo-

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