王维　和贾舍人早朝大明宫之作 AN EARLY AUDIENCE AT THE PALACE OF LIGHT
HARMONIZING SECRETARY JIA ZHI POEM
绛帻鸡人送晓筹
尚衣方进翠云裘
九天阊阖开宫殿
万国衣冠拜冕旒
日色才临仙掌动
香烟欲傍衮龙浮
朝罢须裁五色诏
佩声归向凤池头
The red-capped Cock-Man has just announced morning;
The Keeper of the Robes brings Jade-Cloud Furs;
Heaven's nine doors reveal the palace and its courtyards;
And the coats of many countries bow to the Pearl Crown.
Sunshine has entered the giants' carven palms;
Incense wreathes the Dragon Robe:
The audience adjourns-and the five-coloured edict
Sets girdle-beads clinking toward the Lake of the Phoenix.

王维　奉和圣制从蓬莱向兴庆阁道中留春雨中春望之作应制 LOOKING DOWN IN A SPRING-RAIN ON THE COURSE
FROM FAIRY-MOUNTAIN PALACE TO THE PAVILION OF
INCREASE HARMONIZING THE EMPEROR'S POEM
渭水自萦秦塞曲
黄山旧绕汉宫斜
銮舆迥出千门柳
阁道回看上苑花
云里帝城双凤阙
雨中春树万人家
为乘阳气行时令
不是宸游玩物华
Round a turn of the Qin Fortress winds the Wei River,
And Yellow Mountain foot-hills enclose the Court of China;
Past the South Gate willows comes the Car of Many Bells
On the upper Palace-Garden Road-a solid length of blossom;
A Forbidden City roof holds two phoenixes in cloud;
The foliage of spring shelters multitudes from rain;
And now, when the heavens are propitious for action,
Here is our Emperor ready-no wasteful wanderer.

王维　积雨辋川庄作 IN MY LODGE AT WANG CHUAN
AFTER A LONG RAIN
积雨空林烟火迟
蒸藜炊黍饷东 [“淄”去氵加草头]
漠漠水田飞白鹭
阴阴夏木啭黄鹂
山中习静观朝槿
松下清斋折露葵
野老与人争席罢
海鸥何事更相疑
The woods have stored the rain, and slow comes the smoke
As rice is cooked on faggots and carried to the fields;
Over the quiet marsh-land flies a white egret,
And mango-birds are singing in the full summer trees....
I have learned to watch in peace the mountain morningglories,
To eat split dewy sunflower-seeds under a bough of pine,
To yield the post of honour to any boor at all....
Why should I frighten sea gulls, even with a thought?

王维　酬郭给事 HARMONIZING A POEM BY PALACE-ATTENDANT GUO
洞门高阁霭馀辉
桃李阴阴柳絮飞
禁里疏钟官舍晚
省中啼鸟吏人稀
晨摇玉佩趋金殿
夕奉天书拜琐闱
强欲从君无那老
将因卧病解朝衣
High beyond the thick wall a tower shines with sunset
Where peach and plum are blooming and the willowcotton flies.
You have heard in your office the court-bell of twilight;
Birds find perches, officials head for home.
Your morning-jade will tinkle as you thread the golden palace;
You will bring the word of Heaven from the closing gates at night.
And I should serve there with you; but being full of years,
I have taken off official robes and am resting from my troubles.

杜甫　蜀相 THE TEMPLE OF THE PREMIER OF SHU
丞相祠堂何处寻
锦官城外柏森森
映阶碧草自春色
隔叶黄鹂空好音
三顾频烦天下计
两朝开济老臣心
出师未捷身先死
长使英雄泪满襟
Where is the temple of the famous Premier? --
In a deep pine grove near the City of Silk,
With the green grass of spring colouring the steps,
And birds chirping happily under the leaves.
...The third summons weighted him with affairs of state
And to two generations he gave his true heart,
But before he could conquer, he was dead;
And heroes have wept on their coats ever since.

杜甫　客至 A HEARTY WELCOME TO VICE-PREFECT CUI
舍南舍北皆春水
但见群鸥日日来
花径不曾缘客扫
蓬门今始为君开
盘飧市远无兼味
樽酒家贫只旧醅
肯与邻翁相对饮
隔篱呼取尽馀杯
North of me, south of me, spring is in flood,
Day after day I have seen only gulls....
My path is full of petals -- I have swept it for no others.
My thatch gate has been closed -- but opens now for you.
It's a long way to the market, I can offer you little --
Yet here in my cottage there is old wine for our cups.
Shall we summon my elderly neighbour to join us,
Call him through the fence, and pour the jar dry?

杜甫　野望 A VIEW OF THE WILDERNESS
西山白雪三城戍
南浦清江万里桥
海内风尘诸弟隔
天涯涕泪一身遥
唯将迟暮供多病
未有涓埃答圣朝
跨马出郊时极目
不堪人事日萧条
Snow is white on the westward mountains and on three fortified towns,
And waters in this southern lake flash on a long bridge.
But wind and dust from sea to sea bar me from my brothers;
And I cannot help crying, I am so far away.
I have nothing to expect now but the ills of old age.
I am of less use to my country than a grain of dust.
I ride out to the edge of town. I watch on the horizon,
Day after day, the chaos of the world.

杜甫　闻官军收河南河北 BOTH SIDES OF THE YELLOW RIVER
RECAPTURED BY THE IMPERIAL ARMY
剑外忽传收蓟北
初闻涕泪满衣裳
却看妻子愁何在
漫卷诗书喜欲狂
白日放歌须纵酒
青春作伴好还乡
即从巴峡穿巫峡
便下襄阳向洛阳
News at this far western station! The north has been recaptured!
At first I cannot check the tears from pouring on my coat --
Where is my wife? Where are my sons?
Yet crazily sure of finding them, I pack my books and poems- -
And loud my song and deep my drink
On the green spring-day that starts me home,
Back from this mountain, past another mountain,
Up from the south, north again-to my own town!

杜甫　登高 A LONG CLIMB
风急天高猿啸哀
渚清沙白鸟飞回
无边落木萧萧下
不尽长江滚滚来
万里悲秋常作客
百年多病独登台
艰难苦恨繁霜鬓
潦倒新停浊酒杯
In a sharp gale from the wide sky apes are whimpering,
Birds are flying homeward over the clear lake and white sand,
Leaves are dropping down like the spray of a waterfall,
While I watch the long river always rolling on.
I have come three thousand miles away. Sad now with autumn
And with my hundred years of woe, I climb this height alone.
Ill fortune has laid a bitter frost on my temples,
Heart-ache and weariness are a thick dust in my wine.

杜甫　登楼 FROM AN UPPER STORY
花近高楼伤客心
万方多难此登临
锦江春色来天地
玉垒浮云变古今
北极朝庭终不改
西山寇盗莫相侵
可怜後主还祠庙
日暮聊为梁父吟
Flowers, as high as my window, hurt the heart of a wanderer
For I see, from this high vantage, sadness everywhere.
The Silken River, bright with spring, floats between earth and heaven
Like a line of cloud by the Jade Peak, between ancient days and now.
...Though the State is established for a while as firm as the North Star
And bandits dare not venture from the western hills,
Yet sorry in the twilight for the woes of a longvanished Emperor,
I am singing the song his Premier sang when still unestranged from the mountain.

杜甫　宿府 STAYING AT THE GENERAL'S HEADQUARTERS
清秋幕府井梧寒
独宿江城蜡炬残
永夜角声悲自语
中天月色好谁看
风尘荏苒音书绝
关塞萧条行陆难
已忍伶俜十年事
强移栖息一枝安
The autumn night is clear and cold in the lakka-trees of this courtyard.
I am lying forlorn in the river-town. I watch my guttering candle.
I hear the lonely notes of a bugle sounding through the dark.
The moon is in mid-heaven, but there's no one to share it with me.
My messengers are scattered by whirls of rain and sand.
City-gates are closed to a traveller; mountains are walls in my way --
Yet, I who have borne ten years of pitiable existence,
Find here a perch, a little branch, and am safe for this one night.

杜甫　阁夜 NIGHT IN THE WATCH-TOWER
岁暮阴阳催短景
天涯霜雪霁寒霄
五更鼓角声悲壮
三峡星河影动摇
野哭千家闻战伐
夷歌数处起渔樵
卧龙跃马终黄土
人事音书漫寂寥
While winter daylight shortens in the elemental scale
And snow and frost whiten the cold-circling night,
Stark sounds the fifth-watch with a challenge of drum and bugle.
...The stars and the River of Heaven pulse over the three mountains;
I hear women in the distance, wailing after the battle;
I see barbarian fishermen and woodcutters in the dawn.
...Sleeping-Dragon, Plunging-Horse, are no generals now, they are dust --
Hush for a moment, O tumult of the world.

杜甫　咏怀古迹五首·之一 POETIC THOUGHTS ON ANCIENT SITES I
支离东北风尘际
漂泊西南天地间
三峡楼台淹日月
五溪衣服共云山
羯胡事主终无赖
词客哀时且未还
庾信平生最萧瑟
暮年诗赋动江关
Forlorn in the northeast among wind and dust,
Drifting in the southwest between heaven and earth,
Lingering for days and months in towers and terraces at the Three Gorges,
Sharing clouds and mountains with the costumes of the Five Streams.
The barbarian serving the ruler in the end was unreliable.
The wandering poet lamenting the times had no chance to return.
Yu Xin throughout his life was most miserable,
In his waning years his poetry stirred the land of rivers and passes.

杜甫　咏怀古迹五首·之二 POETIC THOUGHTS ON ANCIENT SITES II
摇落深知宋玉悲
风流儒雅亦吾师
怅望千秋一洒泪
萧条异代不同时
江山故宅空文藻
云雨荒台岂梦思
最是楚宫俱泯灭
舟人指点到今疑
"Decay and decline": deep knowledge have I of Sung Yu's grief.
Romantic and refined, he too is my teacher.
Sadly looking across a thousand autumns, one shower of tears,
Melancholy in different epochs, not at the same time.
Among rivers and mountains his old abode -- empty his writings;
Deserted terrace of cloud and rain -- surely not just imagined in a dream?
Utterly the palaces of Chu are all destroyed and ruined,
The fishermen pointing them out today are unsure.

杜甫　咏怀古迹五首·之三 THOUGHTS OF OLD TIME III
群山万壑赴荆门
生长明妃尚有村
一去紫台连朔漠
独留青冢向黄昏
画图省识春风面
环佩空归月下魂
千载琵琶作胡语
分明怨恨曲中论
Ten thousand ranges and valleys approach the Jing Gate
And the village in which the Lady of Light was born and bred.
She went out from the purple palace into the desertland;
She has now become a green grave in the yellow dusk.
Her face ! Can you picture a wind of the spring?
Her spirit by moonlight returns with a tinkling
Song of the Tartars on her jade guitar,
Telling her eternal sorrow.

杜甫　咏怀古迹五首·之四 POETIC THOUGHTS ON ANCIENT SITES IV
蜀主征吴幸三峡
崩年亦在永安宫
翠华想像空山里
玉殿虚无野寺中
古庙杉松巢水鹤
岁时伏腊走村翁
武侯祠屋常邻近
一体君臣祭祀同
The ruler of Shu had his eyes on Wu and progressed as far as the Three Gorges.
In the year of his demise, too, he was in the Palace of Eternal Peace.
The blue-green banners can be imagined on the empty mountain,
The jade palace is a void in the deserted temple.
In the pines of the ancient shrine aquatic cranes nest;
At summer and winter festivals the comers are village elders.
The Martial Marquis's memorial shrine is ever nearby;
In union, sovereign and minister share the sacrifices together.

杜甫　咏怀古迹五首·之五 THOUGHTS OF OLD TIME V
诸葛大名垂宇宙
宗臣遗像肃清高
三分割据纡筹策
万古云霄一羽毛
伯仲之间见伊吕
指挥若定失萧曹
运移汉祚终难复
志决身歼军务劳
Zhuge's prestige transcends the earth;
There is only reverence for his face;
Yet his will, among the Three Kingdoms at war,
Was only as one feather against a flaming sky.
He was brother of men like Yi and Lu
And in time would have surpassed the greatest of all statesmen.
Though he knew there was no hope for the House of Han,
Yet he wielded his mind for it, yielded his life.

刘长卿　江州重别薛六柳八二员外 ON LEAVING GUIJIANG AGAIN TO XUE AND LIU
生涯岂料承优诏
世事空知学醉歌
江上月明胡雁过
淮南木落楚山多
寄身且喜沧洲近
顾影无如白发何
今日龙钟人共老
愧君犹遣慎风波
Dare I, at my age, accept my summons,
Knowing of the world's ways only wine and song?....
Over the moon-edged river come wildgeese from the Tartars;
And the thinner the leaves along the Huai, the wider the southern mountains....
I ought to be glad to take my old bones back to the capital,
But what am I good for in that world, with my few white hairs?....
As bent and decrepit as you are, I am ashamed to thank you,
When you caution me that I may encounter thunderbolts.

刘长卿　长沙过贾谊宅 ON PASSING JIA YI'S HOUSE IN CHANGSHA
三年谪宦此栖迟
万古惟留楚客悲
秋草独寻人去後
寒林空见日斜时
汉文有道恩犹薄
湘水无情吊岂知
寂寂江山摇落处
怜君何事到天涯
Here, where you spent your three years' exile,
To be mourned in Chu ten thousand years,
Can I trace your footprint in the autumn grass --
Or only slanting sunlight through the bleak woods?
If even good Emperor Wen was cold-hearted,
Could you hope that the dull river Xiang would understand you,
These desolate waters, these taciturn mountains,
When you came, like me, so far away?

刘长卿　自夏口至鹦洲夕望岳阳寄源中丞 AN EVENING VIEW OF THE CITY OF YOUZHOU AFTER
COMING FROM HANKOU TO PARROT ISLAND A POEM SENT
TO MY FRIEND GOVERNOR YUAN
汀洲无浪复无烟
楚客相思益渺然
汉口夕阳斜渡鸟
洞庭秋水远连天
孤城背岭寒吹角
独戍临江夜泊船
贾谊上书忧汉室
长沙谪去古今怜
No ripples in the river, no mist on the islands,
Yet the landscape is blurred toward my friend in Chu....
Birds in the slanting sun cross Hankou,
And the autumn sky mingles with Lake Dongting.
...From a bleak mountain wall the cold tone of a bugle
Reminds me, moored by a ruined fort,
That Jia Yi's loyal plea to the House of Han
Banned him to Changsha, to be an exile.

钱起　赠阙下裴舍人 TO MY FRIEND AT THE CAPITAL SECRETARY PEI
二月黄鹂飞上林
春城紫禁晓阴阴
长乐钟声花外尽
龙池柳色雨中深
阳和不散穷途恨
霄汉长怀捧日心
献赋十年犹未遇
羞将白发对华簪
Finches flash yellow through the Imperial Grove
Of the Forbidden City, pale with spring dawn;
Flowers muffle a bell in the Palace of Bliss
And rain has deepened the Dragon Lake willows;
But spring is no help to a man bewildered,
Who would be like a cloud upholding the Light of Heaven,
Yet whose poems, ten years refused, are shaming
These white hairs held by the petalled pin.

韦应物　寄李儋元锡 TO MY FRIENDS LI DAN AND YUANXI
去年花里逢君别
今日花开又一年
世事茫茫难自料
春愁黯黯独成眠
身多疾病思田里
邑有流亡愧俸钱
闻道欲来相问讯
西楼望月几回圆
We met last among flowers, among flowers we parted,
And here, a year later, there are flowers again;
But, with ways of the world too strange to foretell,
Spring only brings me grief and fatigue.
I am sick, and I think of my home in the country-
Ashamed to take pay while so many are idle.
...In my western tower, because of your promise,
I have watched the full moons come and go.

皇甫冉　春思 SPRING THOUGHTS
莺啼燕语报新年
马邑龙堆路几千
家住层城邻汉苑
心随明月到胡天
机中锦字论长恨
楼上花枝笑独眠
为问天戎窦车骑
何时返旆勒燕然
Finch-notes and swallow-notes tell the new year....
But so far are the Town of the Horse and the Dragon Mound
From this our house, from these walls and Han Gardens,
That the moon takes my heart to the Tartar sky.
I have woven in the frame endless words of my grieving....
Yet this petal-bough is smiling now on my lonely sleep.
Oh, ask General Dou when his flags will come home
And his triumph be carved on the rock of Yanran mountain!

卢纶　晚次鄂州 A NIGHT-MOORING AT WUCHANG
云开远见汉阳城
犹是孤帆一日程
估客昼眠知浪静
舟人夜语觉潮生
三湘愁鬓逢秋色
万里归心对月明
旧业已随征战尽
更堪江上鼓鼙声
Far off in the clouds stand the walls of Hanyang,
Another day's journey for my lone sail....
Though a river-merchant ought to sleep in this calm weather,
I listen to the tide at night and voices of the boatmen.
...My thin hair grows wintry, like the triple Xiang streams,
Three thousand miles my heart goes, homesick with the moon;
But the war has left me nothing of my heritage --
And oh, the pang of hearing these drums along the river!

柳宗元　登柳州城楼寄漳汀封连四州刺史 FROM THE CITY-TOWER OF LIUZHOU
TO MY FOUR FELLOW-OFFICIALS AT ZHANG,
DING, FENG, AND LIAN DISTRICTS
城上高楼接大荒
海天愁思正茫茫
惊风乱 [风占] 芙蓉水
密雨斜侵薜荔墙
岭树重遮千里目
江流曲似九回肠
共来百越文身地
犹自音书滞一乡
At this lofty tower where the town ends, wilderness begins;
And our longing has as far to go as the ocean or the sky....
Hibiscus-flowers by the moat heave in a sudden wind,
And vines along the wall are whipped with slanting rain.
Nothing to see for three hundred miles but a blur of woods and mountain --
And the river's nine loops, twisting in our bowels....
This is where they have sent us, this land of tattooed people --
And not even letters, to keep us in touch with home.

刘禹锡　西塞山怀古 THOUGHTS OF OLD TIME AT WEST FORT MOUNTAIN
王浚楼船下益州
金陵王气黯然收
千寻铁锁沈江底
一片降幡出石头
人世几回伤往事
山形依旧枕寒流
从今四海为家日
故垒萧萧芦荻秋
Since Wang Jun brought his towering ships down from Yizhou,
The royal ghost has pined in the city of Nanjing.
Ten thousand feet of iron chain were sunk here to the bottom --
And then came the flag of surrender on the Wall of Stone....
Cycles of change have moved into the past,
While still this mountain dignity has commanded the cold river;
And now comes the day of the Chinese world united,
And the old forts fill with ruin and with autumn reeds.