English Rendering
Spring grasses, green, green, horizon and beyond.
Border town, sundown, I see someone leaving home.
I know the feeling, ocean bound, three years gone.
No one sends, among those clouds, a single word from home.
Spring Grasses
- Poetry of Zhang Xu
《春草》
Original Text (中文原文)
春草青青万里馀，边城落日见离居。
情知塞上三年别，不寄云间一纸书。
Analysis & Context
If you had stood on the northern hills of central China during the Tang dynasty, the grassy plains of Central Asia ran north into the distance. In the spring, that greenness would have staggered the imagination. Only an ocean could have compared with that infinite green.
Reader's Companion
The Essence of the Verse
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.
Reading Between the Lines
Look for Contrasts: light and shadow, movement and stillness. Don't just translate the words; feel the Yijing (artistic conception) that lingers long after the last character.
- Clear Stream, Afloat in a Boat
- Spring Outing, Coinciding with Rain
- Willows
- Spring Grasses
- Mountain Walk, Asking Guest to Stay
- Peach-blossom River
- The Summit Temple
- <Prelude to Water Melody> Sent to Ziyou on Mid-autumn Festival
- Invitation to Wine
- Question and Answer in the Mountains
- Cold sheet
- Coming Home ( Returning Home )
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