Nscribed on the Wall of An Inn North of Dayu Mountain
- Poetry of Song Zhiwen
They say that wildgeese, flying southward,
Here turn back, this very month....
Shall my own southward journey
Ever be retraced, I wonder?
...The river is pausing at ebb-tide,
And the woods are thick with clinging mist --
But tomorrow morning, over the mountain,
Dawn will be white with the plum-trees of home.
Five-character-regular-verse
Composed around 704 AD during the Tang Dynasty, this poem was written by Song Zhiwen at Dayu Ridge North Station while en route to his exile in Shuangzhou after being implicated with Zhang Yizhi's faction. Facing both political ruin and geographical isolation as he journeyed from Chang'an to the Lingnan wilderness, the poet poured his anguish into these verses - a poignant meditation on the threshold between civilization and barbaric lands.
阳月南飞雁，传闻至此回。
我行殊未已，何日复归来。
江静潮初落，林昏瘴不开。
明朝望乡处，应见陇头梅。
- Why Chinese poems is so special?
- The most distinctive features of Chinese poetry are: concision- many poems are only four lines, and few are much longer than eight; ambiguity- number, tense and parts of speech are often undetermined, creating particularly rich interpretative possibilities; and structure- most poems follow quite strict formal patterns which have beauty in themselves as well as highlighting meaningful contrasts.
- How to read a Chinese poem?
- Like an English poem, but more so. Everything is there for a reason, so try to find that reason. Think about all the possible connotations, and be aware of the different possibilities of number and tense. Look for contrasts: within lines, between the lines of each couplet and between successive couplets. Above all, don't worry about what the poet meant- find your meaning.
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