As of old when autumn falls, themes forlorn we bemoan;
But I say the autumn day excels any spring morn known.
Flapping skywards, a crane, past clouds white in the sun,
O how my muse of poesy to the heavens azure has flown.
-- Translated by Andrew W.F. Wong (Huang Hongfa)
自古逢秋悲寂寥，我言秋日胜春朝。
晴空一鹤排云上，便引诗情到碧霄。
This poem was composed during the Yuanhe era of Emperor Xianzong of Tang, after Liu Yuxi, having participated in the failed "Yongzhen Reforms," was demoted to the position of Marshal of Langzhou. He was thirty-four that year, in the prime of his life, yet he had fallen from a rising star at court to a disgraced official relegated to a remote corner. Langzhou was an isolated, impoverished place, far removed from the political center; his former ambitions now seemed like mere bubbles.
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.
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