Chinese Poems about Death

As man and wife we ever unite;

We never doubt about our love.

Let us enjoy our fill tonight

As tender as a cooing dove!

Thinking of the way I should go,

I rise to see if time is due.

The stars appear dim high and low;

Adieu! I must bid you adieu.

Away to battlefield I’ll hie;

I know not if we’ll meet again.

Holding your hand, I give a sign;

My tears of farewell fall like rain.

Enjoy the spring flowers in view!

Do not forget our time in glee!

Safe and sound, I’ll come back to you;

Even killed, my love won’t die with me.

All turns to dust in my dying eyes,

only hatred is that a unified land is not seen.

When the day of the emperor's troops sweeping the North comes,

you must not forget to tell me before my tombstone.

The living are but passers-by,

And those are going home who die.

The sky and earth are hotels just 

For all to grieve over age-old dust.

The Moon Goddess lives long in vain;

The sacred tree's cut down with pain.

The bleached bones can nor speak nor sing.

Could green pines feel the warmth of spring?

Ancestors and posterity,

Don't prize but sigh for vanity!

On the mid-autumn festival,I drank happily till dawn and wrote this in my cups while thinking of Ziyou.

When did the bright moon first appear?

Wine-cup in hand,I ask the blue sky.

I do not know what time of year It would be tonight in the palace on high.

Riding the wind,there I would fly,

But I'm afraid the crystalline palace would be 

Too high and too cold for me.

I rise and dance,with my shadow I play.

On high as on earth,would it be as gay?

The moon goes round the mansions red 

With gauze windows to shed 

Her light upon the sleepless bed.

Against man she should not have any spite.

Why then when people part is she oft full and bright?

Men have sorrow and joy,they part and meet again;

The moon may be bright or dim,she may wax or wane.

There has been nothing perfect since olden days.

So let us wish that man live as long as he can 

Though miles apart,we'll share the beauty she displays.

For ten long years the living of the dead knows nought.

Should the dead be forgot

And to mind never brought?

Her lonely grave is a thousand miles away.

To whom can I my grief convey?

Revived e'en if she be,could she still know me?

My face is worn with care

And frosted is my hair.

Last night I dreamed of coming to my native place:

She's making up her face

At the window with grace.

We gazed at each other hushed,

But tears from our eyes gushed.

When I am woken,I fancy her heart-broken 

On the mound clad with pines,

Where only the moon shines.

Cicadas whine,looked the Chang Pavilion after a sudden rain,

on the riverbank,we drank silently,boatman called you leave.

Tearfully held your hands without a word,mist rose so dense,

thousand miles of heartbroken scenery towards the south.

The sentimental person always will weep for the parting,

not to mention now the bleak autumn has come here.

Where do i wake up?Cold wind breezes the willow trees.

On the rivers,fireflies're so beautiful,but without you,all means nothing.

Time was long before I met her, but is longer since we parted,

And the east wind has arisen and a hundred flowers are gone,

And the silk-worms of spring will weave until they die

And every night the candles will weep their wicks away.

Mornings in her mirror she sees her hair-cloud changing,

Yet she dares the chill of moonlight with her evening song.

...It is not so very far to her Enchanted Mountain

O blue-birds, be listening!-Bring me what she says!

I sit here alone, mourning for us both.

How many years do I lack now of my threescore and ten?

There have been better men than I to whom heaven denied a son,

There was a poet better than I whose dead wife could not hear him.

What have I to hope for in the darkness of our tomb?

You and I had little faith in a meeting after death-

Yet my open eyes can see all night

That lifelong trouble of your brow.