Now I can tell you that poem

Respect and a tinge of jealousy?

Credit: Robin Hickmott, Flickr

A Night at the Cottage Where Wang Changling Stayed When He Retired for the First Time
Chang Jian

A crystal stream flows deep into the hills;
White clouds are your log cabin's only view.
Between the pines, a waxing new moon spills
Its crystal light, intended just for you.
Long shadows sleep inside: unpruned plants grew;
And lichen frills the herb beds' paving rocks.
I wish that I could disappear, too,
Go west and hobnob with the phoenix flocks.

常建  宿王昌龄隐居
清溪深不测，隐处唯孤云。
松际露微月，清光犹为君。
茅亭宿花影，药院滋苔纹。
余亦谢时去，西山鸾鹤群。

---

Wang Changling was a very successful politician, who held several important jobs in the imperial service. In between positions he would retire to the countryside.

Chang Jian (708-765) looked up to Wang Changling, and came to visit him at his mountain hideaway. In Chang’s mind, this was a place of principled retreat: the only thing he saw at the cabin were white clouds, symbol of the educated man conscientiously rejecting public service.

But by the time Chang Jian reached his remote cabin, Wang had left. Perhaps he had gone off to the mystical hills of the west, where legendary creatures fly?

But the other possibility is more prosaic: Chang’an lay to the west, and the dragons and phoenixes were the movers and shakers on the summits of political power. Chang Jian’s hero worship is also tinged with jealousy, and perhaps disappointment in his hero, whose white cloud principles may have blown away on the wind.