On Meeting a Messenger to the Capital
By Cen Shen
It’s a long way home, a long way east,
I am old and my sleeve is wet with tears.
We meet on horseback. I have no means of writing.
Tell them three words: “He is safe.”
Jan 282011
To General Hua
By Du Fu
In the city of Brocade the lute and the pipes all day make riot;
Half of the music is lost in the river breezes, and half in the clouds.
But this song should only belong to heaven;
Among mortals how seldom can it be heard!
Coming Across Li Guinian in Jiangnan
By Du Fu
I saw you now and then in Prince Qi’s house,
And heard your songs in Courtier Cui’s grand rooms.
When sights are fine in the Land of the South,
I meet you again in a shower of blooms.
Jan 282011
An Impromptu Verse
By Du Fu
A pair of orioles sing amid the willows green.
And up the sky a flock of herons white now soar.
Westward the snow-capped peaks are through my windows seen,
While junks from far-off Dongwu lie beyond my door.
Along the Riverside, Alone and Looking at Flowers
By Du Fu
In the garden of Lady
Huang the Fourth, flowers fill
The whole place; blossom
Weighs the branches low;
Gay butterflies flit in
And round, accompanied by
The joyous song of birds.
Jan 282011
Zither Playing
By Liu Changqing
Upon the seven-stringed tinkling zither
Mutely I heard the chilly Wind-through-the-Pine.
O how I love it, though it is out-moded,
Though to play it most moderns would decline!
Jan 282011
Encountering a snowstorm, I Stay with the Recluse of Mount Hibiscus
By Liu Changqing
Dark hills distant in the setting sun,
Thatched hut stark under wintry skies.
A dog barks at the brushwood gate,
As someone heads home this windy, snowy night.
Jan 282011
A Plum’s Early Blossoms
By Zhang Wei
All its branches in cold air looking like white jade,
A plum stands by a brook bridge far from village road.
Knowing not the brook water makes it early bloom,
I take the plum blossoms for the winter’s left snow.
Written on a Chinese New Year’s Eve
By Gao Shi
Facing a cold lamp in hotel I can not sleep,
Why does my sadness far from home become so deep?
Tonight my dear ones far at home are missing me,
A new year and more grey hairs of mine morrow’ll see.
Jan 282011
Hear Miss Zhang Singing
By Gao Shi
Miss Zhang is dressed with high hat, loose sleeves, straitened waist,
She’s walking leisurely enjoying the cool night.
Knocking at the courtyard bamboos with her hairpin,
She sings sweetly to make the moon as cool as frost.
