Li Bai in his wilderness years

Chose the wilderness, and the wilderness chose him

Sitting Alone with Mt Jingting
Li Bai

The birds have all upped and away,
Even that one cloud has taken a holiday.
Holding my gaze still
Is just this one hill.


李白  独坐敬亭山
众鸟高飞尽，孤云独去闲。
相看两不厌，只有敬亭山。

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Li’s career was going nowhere. Like many Tang poets, to distract himself (and maybe avoid appearing too desperate, hanging around the capital), he took himself off to interesting and beautiful places. Mt Jingting is in Anhui, which was pretty out-of-the-way in those days.

Li was not too proud to complain about how everyone seemed to have deserted him. But the second couplet also reminds us how landscape was the great consolation of Tang poets. Even when everything else was going wrong, they always had this beautiful land to gaze on; even when all others turned away, the land would look levelly back.