Calligraphy: Translation

[Tianjin42]

A few weeks into my first visit to China, an art teacher based at the school I was working told me (through an interpreter at that time) that he was impressed by my diligence in studying and would produce a piece of work for me.

On recently returning home I found the piece, expecting to now be able to have a go at translating. But despite decent reading skills I do struggle with handwriting and have difficulty even identifying the characters here. This is a rather extreme example - beautifully rendered characters.

I'm not even sure where to begin translating save a few obvious characters and would appreciate any advice or efforts (simply knowing the Chinese here would be useful - struggling to identify the characters). Images attached

[skylee]

The one on the right -

雞鳴自起束行裝，同伴征人笑我忙。卻更有人忙過我，蹇蹄先印石橋霜。(“早行” by 李漁）

[Tianjin42]

That's really impressive, I had great difficulty trying to break it down. 

I doff my cap.

 

Thanks 

[yymmcc112233]

鸡鸣自起束行装，同伴征人笑我忙。却更有人忙过我，蹇蹄先印石桥霜。It's a Chinese ancient poem. The author is 李渔 who is in Qing dynasty. This poem is written by using cursive traditional characters, so even Chinese who are not well educated can't read it well.

The poem means: 

公鸡刚刚打鸣的时候，我就起床整理好了行装。和我一同走的那些远行的人都笑我太过忙碌了，但是有人比我更为忙碌，早已印在石桥上的劣马的足迹，都已经有霜结在上面了。

When cocks were crowing, I had been ready to travel. People who went with me laughed at me for my being busy, but somebody is busier than me. The footprints of horses had been frosted on the stone bridge.

[陳德聰]

I can't read the one on the left except the part where it says "清 李渔 早行" and then the farthest left is just the signature and presumably the date.

 

On another note, I would not break up the parallel structure in the translation that way. I arose and readied my things when the rooster crowed, and my company laughed at my busyness. Yet someone had been busier than me, as there were already hoofprints in the frost on the stone bridge. <- I am not a poet.