An Excuse For Not Returning the Visit of a Friend by Mei-Yao Ch'en

Translated by Kenneth Rexroth

Do not be offended because

I am slow to go out.  You know

Me too well for that.  On my lap

I hold my little girl.  At my

Knees stands my handsome little son.

One has just begun to talk.

The other chatters without

Stopping.  They hang on my clothes

And follow my every step.

I can't get any farther

Than the door.  I am afraid

I will never make it to your house.

--

About the author:

Mei Yaochen (or Mei Yao-ch'en) (梅尧臣 or 梅堯臣) (1002 - 1060) was a poet of the Song dynasty. He was one of the pioneers of the "new subjective" style of poetry which characterised Song poetry.

Mei Yaochen passed the jinshi exam in 1051 and had a career in the civil service, but was unsuccessful. He was a prolific poet, with around 3000 works extant; he was popularized as a poet by the younger Ouyang Xiu.

Most of his works are in the shi form, but they are much freer in content than those of the Tang dynasty. His response to the impossibility of surpassing the Tang poets was to make a virtue of his lack of ambition; his ideal was 平淡 (pingdan), or the pedestrian. His early verses are often sociocritical, advocating reform along Neo-Confucian lines; later he turned to celebrations of ordinary life and verses mourning the deaths of his first wife and several of his children.