Bai Juyi

Bai Juyi (白居易) (772 - 846) was one of those famous Tang poets. Likely influenced by Han Yu's movement for the language, he wished to come back to a simple and direct poetry. He inspired from folk songs. It is said that he kept only those poems that his housemaid understood.

Sample poem:

Grasses

Boundless grasses over the plain

Come and go with every season;

Wildfire never quite consumes them –

They are tall once more in the spring wind.

Sweet they press on the old high- road

And reach the crumbling city-gate....

O Prince of Friends, you are gone again....

I hear them sighing after you.

Tr. Witter Bynner, cf. [1]