<Header>
<Author: 白居易>
<Title: 自吟拙什因有所懷>
<Format: 格式不明>
<Year: 1919>
<BookName: Translation from the Chinese>
<Translator: Arthur Waley>
<TranslatedTitle: Illness and Idleness>
<BookPage: 161>
<UsedPage: 1>
<Feature: 1, 4>
<End Header>
<Poem>
嬾病每多暇，
暇來何所爲。
未能拋筆研，
時作一篇詩。
詩成澹無味，
多被衆人嗤。
上怪落聲韻，
下嫌拙言詞。
時時自吟詠，
吟罷有所思。
蘇州及彭澤，
與我不同時。
此外復誰愛，
唯有元微之。
謫向江陵府，
三年作判司。
向去二千里，
詩成遠不知。
<End Poem>
<Translation>
Illness and idleness give me much leisure.
What do I do with my leisure, when it comes?
I cannot bring myself to discard inkstone and brush;
Now and then I make a new poem.
When the poem is made, it is slight and flavourless,
A thing of derision to almost every one.
Superior people will be pained at the flatness or the metre;
Common people will hate the plainness of the words.
I sing it to myself, then stop and think about it...
The Prefects of Soochow and P'ēng-tsē
Would perhaps have praised it, but they died long ago.
Who else would care to hear it?
No one to-day except Yüan Chēn,
And he is banished to the City of Chiang-ling,
For three years an usher in the Penal Court.
Parted from me by three thousand leagues
He will never know even that the poem was made.
<End Translation>
<Formatted Translation>
Illness and idleness give me much leisure.
What do I do with my leisure, when it comes?
I cannot bring myself to discard inkstone and brush;
Now and then I make a new poem.
When the poem is made, it is slight and flavourless,
A thing of derision to almost every one.
Superior people will be pained at the flatness or the metre;
Common people will hate the plainness of the words.
I sing it to myself, 
then stop and think about it...
The Prefects of Soochow and P'ēng-tsē
Would perhaps have praised it, but they died long ago.
Who else would care to hear it?
No one to-day except Yüan Chēn,
And he is banished to the City of Chiang-ling,
For three years an usher in the Penal Court.
Parted from me by three thousand leagues
He will never know even that the poem was made.
<End Formatted Translation>