鹿柴
kōng空shān山bù jiàn不见rén人，
dàn但wén rén闻人yǔ语xiǎng响。
fǎn返jǐng景rù入shēn深lín林，
fù复zhào照qīng tái青苔shǎng上。
Line by line
- 空山不见人，空山不見人， On the empty mountain no one is seen,
- 但闻人语响。但聞人語響。 yet the sound of human voices echoes.
- 返景入深林， Returning light enters the deep forest
- 复照青苔上。復照青苔上。 and shines again on the green moss.
The poet & the story
Wang Wei (701–761) — poet, painter and devout Buddhist — wrote this at his country estate on the Wang River, of which “Deer Enclosure” was one scenic spot. Su Shi’s famous verdict on him was “painting within the poem, poetry within the painting”, and no quatrain shows it better.
Interpretation
No one is seen on the empty mountain, yet the echo of a human voice carries. Late sunlight slips back into the deep forest and rests on the green moss. Presence and absence, sound and silence, light and shade — the poem holds them in perfect balance and says nothing more.