When swallows are ready to go,
Last night the west wind blew on the tower high.
We’ve managed to meet on earth below,
And drink by chrysanthemums with cup of gold.
Long songs we sing with faces rosy and bold.
The setting sun peeps through the screen;
A light chill penetrates plane trees green.
How many feelings can’t be told
Are written in the song on paper fine.
This feeling weighs thousands of tons in my mind.
燕子欲归时节，高楼昨夜西风。
求得人间成小会，试把金尊傍菊丛。歌长粉面红。
斜日更穿帘幕，微凉渐入梧桐。
多少襟情言不尽，写向蛮笺曲调中。此情千万重。
This lyric was composed during Yan Shu's later years in the mid-Northern Song Dynasty. Though having attained high office and great renown, the aging poet carried a quiet melancholy within, his style maturing into profound subtlety after witnessing life's vicissitudes. Written in autumn—perhaps inspired by a banquet or autumn scenery—it expresses not just conventional parting sorrow but the poet's own deeply buried loneliness and remembrance.
Classical Chinese poetry thrives on Concision and Ambiguity. Without tense or number, the words create a timeless space where the reader becomes the co-creator of the poem's meaning.
Look for Contrasts: light and shadow, movement and stillness. Don't just translate the words; feel the Yijing (artistic conception) that lingers long after the last character.
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