A Song of White Snow in Farewell to Field-clerk Wu Going Home
- Poetry of Cen Shen

The north wind rolls the white grasses and breaks them;

And the Eighth-month snow across the Tartar sky

Is like a spring gale, come up in the night,

Blowing open the petals of ten thousand peartrees.

It enters the pearl blinds, it wets the silk curtains;

A fur coat feels cold, a cotton mat flimsy;

Bows become rigid, can hardly be drawn

And the metal of armour congeals on the men;

The sand-sea deepens with fathomless ice,

And darkness masses its endless clouds;

But we drink to our guest bound home from camp,

And play him barbarian lutes, guitars, harps;

Till at dusk, when the drifts are crushing our tents

And our frozen red flags cannot flutter in the wind,

We watch him through Wheel-Tower Gate going eastward.

Into the snow-mounds of Heaven-Peak Road....

And then he disappears at the turn of the pass,

Leaving behind him only hoof-prints.

-- Poem translator: Kiang Kanghu

北风卷地白草折，胡天八月即飞雪。

忽如一夜春风来，千树万树梨花开。

散入珠帘湿罗幕，狐裘不暖锦衾薄。

将军角弓不得控，都护铁衣冷难着。

瀚海阑干百丈冰，愁云惨淡万里凝。

中军置酒饮归客，胡琴琵琶与羌笛。

纷纷暮雪下辕门，风掣红旗冻不翻。

轮台东门送君去，去时雪满天山路。

山回路转不见君，雪上空留马行处。