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With my brother at the south study thinking in the moonlight by Wang Changling Lying on a high seat in the south study, we have lifted the curtain - and we see the rising moon brighten with pure light the water and the grove and flow like a wave into our window and our door. It will move through the cycle, full moon and then crescent again, calmly, beyond our wisdom, altering new to old. Our chosen one, our friend, is now by a limpid river - singing, perhaps, a plaintive eastern song. He is far, far away from us, three hundred miles away and yet a breath of orchids comes along the wind. from a translation by Stephen Owen |
Under a Border-Fortress by Wang Changling Drink, my horse, while we cross the autumn water! The stream is cold and the wind like a sword, as we watch against the sunset on the sandy plain, far, far away, shadowy Lingtao. Old battles, waged by those long walls, once were proud on all men's tongues, but antiquity now is a yellow dust, confusing in the grasses its ruins and white bones. Adapted from a translation by Stephen Owen |
Window on Chinese Poetry |
Poems by Wang Changling |
In Her Quiet Window by Wang Changling Too young to have learned what sorrow means, attired for spring, she climbs to her high chamber. The new green of the street-willows is wounding her heart -- just for a title she sent him to war. |
At a Border-Fortress by Wang Changling Cicadas complain of thin mulberry-trees in the Eighth-month chill at the frontier pass. Through the gate and back again, all along the road, there is nothing anywhere but yellow reeds and grasses and the bones of soldiers from Yu and from Ping who have buried their lives in the dusty sand. Let never a cavalier stir you to envy with boasts of his horse and his horsemanship. |
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"It will move through the cycle, full moon and then crescent again, calmly, beyond our wisdom, altering new to old." |
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My Comments Long title! This part of the poem is really expressive and thoughtful. It is strange that we need a particularly striking phenomenon to call our attention to the everyday miracle of natural things. The especially beautiful sight of the moonlight flowing "like a wave" has heightened their senses and stimulated thinking about the moon. There it is, going through its endless cycle, reducing human activity to a tiny perspective by its detachment and serenity. It is like a supreme god watching over us, making all our transient fads and worries seem meaningless. Merv Daw |
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