Liu Zongyuan

Liu Zongyuan (柳宗元) (773 - 819) was a Chinese writer living during Tang dynasty. He, with Han Yu and Bai Juyi, was involved in writing spare prose. His essays and poems are imbued with pessimism. A sample poem Liu Zongyuan:

An old fisherman

An old fisherman spent the night here, under the western cliff;

He dipped up water from the pure Hsiang and made a bamboo fire;

And then, at sunrise, he went his way through the cloven mist,

With only the creak of his paddle left, in the greenness of mountain and river.

...I turn and see the waves moving as from heaven,

And clouds above the cliffs coming idly, one by one.

Tr. Witter Bynner, cf. [1]