Cold Mountain

All your days are like a drunken stupor,
but the flowing years never for a moment stand still.
When you’re buried under the weed-grown turf,
how black will be the moon that shines down there!

When bones and flesh have rotted and scattered
and the spirit is fading away,
though you had jaws that would bite through iron,
how could you intone your Taoist scriptures?

Han-Shan