Dead. Pan.

Quan Deyu has confidence in his readers

Knowing What Is Wrong
Quan Deyu

The teachings of the masters are pleasures in themselves,
Commissions in your cummerbund are steps along the Way.
There is no need for wild songs declaimed with hoots and yells
To luscious vegetation growing deep in secret hills.

权德舆  知非
名教自可乐，搢绅贵行道。
何必学狂歌，深山对丰草。

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Quan Deyu (759-818) was a wunderkind of the late Tang. He was one of the successful ones, rising to the position of Chancellor, and though his career had some of the inevitable ups and downs, he managed to get to the end of his life in good standing. Perhaps that’s partly due to his ability to skilfully judge the response of his readers, as in this simple and lovely poem, dripping with irony, and yet joyfully inoffensive, too.

This one isn’t anthologised, so there aren’t any recordings of it, or even any discussion that I’ve been able to find. So far as I know, I’m the first person to ever translate it into English.