The pilgrim reined in his cloud-head, with no heart for sightseeing.

按落雲頭 ("to press down the cloud-head," to descend); 無心玩景, "in no mood to enjoy the scenery" — Wukong’s errand weighs on him, and the splendors of Fangzhang leave him unmoved.

As he walked along, he caught a rich waft of fragrant wind and the cry of a dark crane, and there, off to one side, stood an immortal.

聞得 ("caught the scent of," 得 the complement de); 玄鶴 ("dark crane"), a bird of the immortals; 那壁廂 ("over on that side"), a colloquial locative.

And this is what he saw:

但見 ("one saw only…"), the storyteller’s cue to a descriptive verse.

Filling the sky, ten thousand shafts of rosy light appear; colored mists drift and flutter, their glow unbroken.

萬道霞光 ("ten thousand rays of sunset-glow"); 飄颻 (piāo yáo), "fluttering, wafting." The verse opens the portrait of the immortal Donghua.

A cinnabar phoenix, a flower in its beak, is fresher still; an azure luan wheels in dance, its cry sweet and bright.

啣花 ("holding a flower in the beak," 啣 = 銜, xián); 丹鳳 and 青鸞, the vermilion phoenix and azure luan, recurrent emblems of immortal splendor.

His fortune like the Eastern Sea, his years like the mountains; his looks those of a young child, his body hale.

福如東海，壽比南山 is a proverbial birthday blessing, here adapted. 貌似小童 ("a face like a child’s"), the mark of the immortal who has reversed old age; 似 read sì.

In his gourd lies hidden a cave-heaven’s deathless elixir; at his waist hangs, bright as the sun, a talisman of long life.

壺…洞天 ("a cave-heaven within a gourd") alludes to the immortal who kept a whole paradise in his flask; 長生篆 ("a long-life talisman," 長 = cháng), a written charm of immortality.

Time and again he sends down good omens to the mortal world; how often he has dissolved men’s calamities and granted their prayers.

降禎祥 ("to send down auspicious signs," 降 = jiàng); 數次 ("several times," 數 = shù, the noun/counter reading); 消厄, "to dispel disaster." The lines cast Donghua as a benefactor of humankind.

Emperor Wu once summoned him to bestow added years; at the Jasper Pool he attends each Feast of Peaches.

武帝 is Emperor Wu of Han, in legend a seeker of immortality; 瑤池 and the 蟠桃宴 ("Feast of Immortal Peaches") are the Queen Mother of the West’s celebrated banquet.

He guides the host of monks to shed their worldly ties, and points open the Great Way, bright as a lightning-flash.

脫俗緣 ("to cast off mundane attachments"); 指開大道, "to point the way clear to the Great Dao." Donghua is here a teacher of enlightenment as well as a giver of blessings.

He has bestridden the seas to wish long life, and often goes to Spirit Mountain to pay court before the Buddha.

跨海祝千秋 ("to cross the seas and offer birthday wishes"); 靈山參佛 ("to attend upon the Buddha at Vulture Peak," 參 = cān, to pay reverent audience). The immortal moves freely between Daoist and Buddhist realms.

His holy title is the Great Sovereign Lord of the Eastern Splendor — first among the immortal kindred of mist and glow.

東華大帝君 (the Great Sovereign of the East, 東華帝君) is a high Daoist deity, reckoned lord of the eastern quarter and of the male immortals; 神仙眷, "the immortal company."