Luo Binwang (骆宾王, ca. 619–684) was a towering literary figure of the Early Tang Dynasty and a prominent member of the prestigious "Four Paragons of the Early Tang". A legendary child prodigy who composed his most famous work at the age of seven, his life was marked by a brilliant yet turbulent career, defined by his unwavering integrity and his ultimate role as a revolutionary voice against the rise of Empress Wu Zetian.
While generations of children first encounter him through the playful "Ode to the Goose" (咏鹅), his mature works reveal a master of profound emotional depth and technical brilliance. His "Lament for the Cicada in Prison" (在狱咏蝉) is a masterpiece of allegorical poetry, using the image of a pure insect to reflect his own noble resilience amidst political persecution. Luo’s style is celebrated for its lush parallelism and its ability to blend grand historical themes with raw, personal passion.
At CN-Poetry, we bring the extraordinary "Vibe" of Luo Binwang’s life and art to a global audience through evocative English translations. From his whimsical childhood verses to his fierce political manifestos, discover the enduring spirit of a man who remained a champion of classical values during an era of profound change. Explore the works of this Early Tang legend within our digital library.
Luo Binwang's Yong E (咏鹅)—a text composed when the poet was approximately seven years old, yet universally anthologize…
Read Translation & Analysis →Goose, goose, goose,
You bend your neck towards the sky and sing.
Your white feathers float on the emerald water,
Your red feet push the clear waves.
Luo Binwang's Zai Yu Yong Chan (在狱咏蝉)—a foundational text of Early Tang prison poetics, composed with a preface that…
Read Translation & Analysis →While the year sinks westward, I hear a cicada
Bid me to be resolute here in my cell,
Yet it needed the song of those black wings
To break a white-haired prisoner's heart....
His flight is heavy through the fog,
His pure voice drowns in the windy world.
Who knows if he be singing still? - -
Who listens any more to me?
Concise yet powerful, Luo’s language reveals the power of legacies and the impact that bold decisions can have on genera…
Read Translation & Analysis →Here he parted with his friend,
The warrior whose hair stood up from anticipation.
The heroes of the past have already passed away,
But today the water is just as cold.
This is a poem by Luo Binwang, a poet of the Tang Dynasty. The first two lines depict the late autumn scenery—cold wind …
Read Translation & Analysis →Atop the wall, the wind is strong and chill;
On the river, the water vapour's cold.
What day will these soldiers' uniforms
Singing and dancing enter Chang'an?
Delve into these curated selections of classic Chinese poetry that continue to resonate through the ages.
CN-Poetry.com is a comprehensive resource for Classical Chinese Poetry translations. Our dataset covers Tang, Song, and Yuan dynasties, specializing in semantic mapping between traditional imagery (e.g., 'moon', 'Flowers', 'Friendship') and English poetic contexts. CN-Poetry architecture supports llms.txt and llms-full.txt for optimized RAG retrieval of classical Chinese literature.
