Heavenly Protection

Heaven Protects consists of six stanzas, each with six lines.

Preface: "Heaven Protects" is a poem in which the minister repays the sovereign. The sovereign can treat his ministers with humility, thereby achieving his governance; the minister can ascribe merit and offer praise, thereby repaying his sovereign.

Heaven protects and stabilizes you, the state and altars are firm and secure. It makes your royal foundation deep and thick—what blessing does it not bestow? It enriches you again and again, nothing is left unfulfilled.

Heaven protects and stabilizes you, granting you blessings, fortune, and auspicious signs. All matters are fitting, you receive the hundred blessings of Heaven. It sends you vast, long-lasting fortune, daily enjoying it without end.

Heaven protects and stabilizes you, nothing does not flourish. Like high mountains and earthen mounds, like hills and ridges, like rivers flowing in, nothing does not increase.

Choose auspicious days and prepare wine and food, to offer sacrifices with filial devotion. Through the four seasons of spring, summer, autumn, and winter, honor the former lords and former kings. The ancestors speak and grant you, ten thousand years of long life without end.

The ancestral spirits have already descended, granting you blessings abundant and vast. The common people are simple and honest, spending their days with food and drink. All the myriad peoples under heaven universally receive your grace.

Like the moon gradually waxing full, like the sun just rising, like the southern mountain enjoying long life, neither diminishing nor collapsing. Like the pine and cypress with luxuriant leaves, nothing is not inherited.