Chinese Poetry
250+ Chinese poems from the period 200-1200
TRANSLATIONS
Matthew Flannery
Authors A-Z
Wang Anshi (1021-1086)
On the River: Another Poem
As western winds whirl on the river
and riverbank flowers lose late red
a single flute calls loneliness in
then blows it east of broken peaks.
Before Mount Zhong
Line four: play on a play. In “At Ruoye Creek,” one of two extant poems by Wang Ji (590?-644), he wrote, “When birds sing, mountain silence grows,” a paradoxical reshuffling of the ordinary thought that mountains grow more silent when birds do not sing. The present artist untwisted — while compounding — what Wang Ji twisted: in the context of Wang Ji’s line, reasserting that a mountain is silent when no birds sing implies that the artist’s mountain is more silent than either preceding mountain.
Silent water slides through bamboo groves.
To the west, flowers and grass soften with spring.
All day beneath my thatch, I watch these things.
Mountain silence grows when no birds sing.
Guazhou Anchorage
Lines one, two: Jingke and Guazhou lie on the north bank of the Yangzi across from Nanjing. South across the river: the artist’s retirement home on Mount Zhong.
Just downriver from Jingke lies Guazhou.
Mount Zhong’s peak — a few blue hills away.
Once again, spring winds green the southern bank.
May gleaming moonlight light my way back home.
Written on a Wall of West Taiyi Monastery: II
Around this place, twenty years back
brother and father carried me east and west.
Head turned white, I come today again
seeking old footprints now long gone.
Climbing to the Top of Feilai Peak
Lines three, four: metaphor for the artist’s political enemies and his appointment to prime minister.
Eight thousand feet up Feilai peak, I climb a pagoda.
Cocks cry up the sun already.
I lose my fear that swelling clouds will block my view
because I rise so far beyond.
On the River
North of the river, autumn skies mix light and dark;
heavy at dusk, lowering clouds thicken with rain.
Circling mountains seem an endless wall of green
until a thousand sails of shine and shadow come.
Reading Lines on Yunqing Monastery by My Late Son Fang
His inky poems mark Yunqing’s walls
as wind and dew bring pain, then grief.
Long have my bones walked among men —
so hard to forget a love this deep.
Wang Anshi (1021-1086)
Brushed on a Monk’s Wall
Flowering palms crowd his courtyard.
Moss crawls through empty rooms.
Then we meet. No need for words.
Subtle fragrance fills the air.
Wang Jian (768?-833?)
Detached Palace
Note: this poem has been attributed to Yuan Zhen (779-831; below).
Title: detached (aka “summer”) palace: palaces away from the capital for the use of the emperor or his family in travel.
The summer palace lingers old and idle
its flowers blush with lonely red.
Gray heads nodding, palace consorts
chat of a ruler long since dead.
New Bride
Background: political advice to new office holders disguised as domestic homily.
Line one: new brides were given two days of rest before reporting to their mother-in-law’s kitchen.
Third day, into the kitchen
to wash her hands and make some soup.
Not knowing the taste of her mother-in-law
she asks the daughter: try it first?
Wang Wan (693-751?)
Brushed on a Monk’s Wall
Flowering palms crowd the courtyard.
Moss creeps through empty rooms.
When we meet, we need no words;
subtle fragrance fills the air.
Wang Zhangling (?-756)
Stopping below Mount Beigu
Line six: the Chinese year ends about February in the western calendar; occasionally, warm weather precedes the new year.
Line eight: wild geese: symbolic messengers; but even they prefer the security of the capital.
Wandering away beneath blue hills
my tiny skiff skims green waves.
Tide in, the shores retreat.
Wind ahead, my sail goes slack.
Sprung from the sea, day tatters night —
spring on the river before year’s end.
What happens now to letters sent home?
Even wild geese flee to Luoyang city.
Wei Yingwu (773-828)
Tune: “Pusa Man”
Title: the artist was fond of the “Pusa Man” format.
Line one: describes a landscape on a gold-leaf screen, its zigzag panels alternating shadow and light.
On golden panels, painted hills are bright, then shadowed;
her clouds of hair hide cheeks of fragrant snow.
She rises listless, shapes her brows like moth antennae,
slow to wash and dress, to brush her hair.
In mirrors front and back, she checks her flower:
face and flower meet in mutual light.
She tries a silken blouse, embroidered, sheer
whose quails of golden thread dance pair by pair.
Tune: “Pusa Man”
Line one: for women, yellow foreheads were standard Tang makeup.
Line six: butterflies: jiggle on flexible wires.
A swath of pollen yellow tints her brow;
behind her window, faded makeup masks a smile.
We first met in peony time —
I could not stay. Now again, farewell.
On golden hairpins, kingfisher feathers
shaped like pairs of butterflies, dance.
Who can know the heart’s affairs?
The moon glows bright. The flowering branch hangs full.
Tune: “Pusa Man”
Peony petals fall, singing orioles cease;
the courtyard full of moonlit willows.
Mutual longings shorten sleep:
behind our windows, lamps burn low.
Pins of gold and feathers line her brow.
Her chamber? Closed. Her perfume lonely.
Across this traveler’s cheeks, trailing tears—
once again, swallows pour through aging spring.
Wen Tingyun (812?-870?)
Joyous Meeting on the Huai River with a Gentleman from Liangquan
Line one: Jiang (river): the Yangzi jiang.
Once we sailed the Han and Jiang
going home drunk each time we met.
Later we parted, drifting clouds.
Ten years ran like flowing water.
Today we smile, recalling old times
thinning hair two colors already.
Any good reason for not going home?
The river winds through autumn hills.
Autumn Night: Sent to Gentleman Qiu
Thinking of you on autumn nights
I walk and sing beneath cold skies.
In distant hills, a pinecone falls.
You, too, must be up.
West Stream at Chuzhou
Brookside grass shoots high and green.
Yellow cranes sing from shadowy trees.
Spring tides swell with rain at dusk.
A lonely ford. No one comes. The boat is still.
Wang Zhihuan (695-?)
Ascending Heron Tower
Line two: Huanghe: Yellow River.
The white sun slides behind the hills.
The Huanghe floods to swaying seas.
I might have seen a thousand miles
had I but climbed another flight.