A Poem by Li Bai

Here is another Chinese poem whose English translation had long been a favorite of mine. I finally found the original Chinese of the poem. Both versions are below. The English translation is not my translation.

The poem spoke to me more before I was married since it speaks of loneliness. I still like it now though. Strangely, or maybe not strangely, I've found poems about old age becoming more more interesting to me now such as the first few sonnets of Shakespeare.

Here's the poem. 

You ask me why I dwell in the green mountain; 
I smile and make no reply for my heart is free of care. 
As the peach-blossom flows down stream and is gone into the unknown, 
I have a world apart that is not among men. 

山中问答 

问余何意栖碧山， 
笑而不答心自闲。 
桃花流水杳然去， 
别有天地非人间。

 

 Notes:

12/8/10 Darren Jansen: There seemed to have been a mistake in the Chinese version that I copied from, so I changed the third from final word from 在 to 非. I've looked at three copies of this poem on the Internet, none of which are exactly the same. Two of them had a different character on the second line from the bottom, third one from the end. The character has the same pronunciation as the one I put above. However, computers don't let me type that character. Further, two of the three dictionaries I looked at don't have it. So instead of using that rare character, I used the more common one. I don't know which is the original.
12/8/10 Darren Jansen: � is the weird character. I had to cut and paste it to get it in here, since the computer wouldn't let me type it. Odd. Below is the dictionary entry for "Yaoran." 

常用词组 
　　1. �然 yǎorán 
　　[far reaching and far away] 指幽深遥远的样子 
　　如：山谷�然