陳子昂　登幽州臺歌 ON A GATE-TOWER AT YUZHOU
前不見古人
後不見來者
念天地之悠悠
獨愴然而涕下
Where, before me, are the ages that have gone?
And where, behind me, are the coming generations?
I think of heaven and earth, without limit, without end,
And I am all alone and my tears fall down.

李頎　古意 AN OLD AIR
男兒事長征
少小幽燕客
賭勝馬蹄下
由來輕七尺
殺人莫敢前
須如猬毛磔
黃云隴底白雪飛
未得報恩不能歸
遼東小婦年十五
慣彈琵琶解歌舞
今為羌笛出塞聲
使我三軍淚如雨
There once was a man, sent on military missions,
A wanderer, from youth, on the You and Yan frontiers.
Under the horses' hoofs he would meet his foes
And, recklessly risking his seven-foot body,
Would slay whoever dared confront
Those moustaches that bristled like porcupinequills.
...There were dark clouds below the hills, there were white clouds above them,
But before a man has served full time, how can he go back?
In eastern Liao a girl was waiting, a girl of fifteen years,
Deft with a guitar, expert in dance and song.
...She seems to be fluting, even now, a reed-song of home,
Filling every soldier's eyes with homesick tears.

李頎　送陳章甫... A FAREWELL TO MY FRIEND CHEN ZHANGFU
四月南風大麥黃
棗花未落桐葉長
青山朝別暮還見
嘶馬出門思故鄉
陳侯立身何坦蕩
虬須虎眉仍大顙
腹中貯書一萬卷
不肯低頭在草莽
東門酤酒飲我曹
心輕萬事皆鴻毛
醉臥不知白日暮
有時空望孤云高
長河浪頭連天黑
津口停舟渡不得
鄭國游人未及家
洛陽行子空嘆息
聞道故林相識多
罷官昨日今如何
In the Fourth-month the south wind blows plains of yellow barley,
Date-flowers have not faded yet and lakka-leaves are long.
The green peak that we left at dawn we still can see at evening,
While our horses whinny on the road, eager to turn homeward.
...Chen, my friend, you have always been a great and good man,
With your dragon's moustache, tiger's eyebrows and your massive forehead.
In your bosom you have shelved away ten thousand volumes.
You have held your head high, never bowed it in the dust.
...After buying us wine and pledging us, here at the eastern gate,
And taking things as lightly as a wildgoose feather,
Flat you lie, tipsy, forgetting the white sun;
But now and then you open your eyes and gaze at a high lone cloud.
...The tide-head of the lone river joins the darkening sky.
The ferryman beaches his boat. It has grown too late to sail.
And people on their way from Cheng cannot go home,
And people from Loyang sigh with disappointment.
...I have heard about the many friends around your wood land dwelling.
Yesterday you were dismissed. Are they your friends today?

李頎　琴歌... A LUTE SONG
主人有酒歡今夕
請奏鳴琴廣陵客
月照城頭烏半飛
霜凄萬樹風入衣
銅爐華燭燭增輝
初彈淥水後楚妃
一聲已動物皆靜
四座無言星欲稀
清淮奉使千馀里
敢告云山從此始
Our host, providing abundant wine to make the night mellow,
Asks his guest from Yangzhou to play for us on the lute.
Toward the moon that whitens the city-wall, black crows are flying,
Frost is on ten thousand trees, and the wind blows through our clothes;
But a copper stove has added its light to that of flowery candles,
And the lute plays The Green Water, and then The Queen of Chu.
Once it has begun to play, there is no other sound:
A spell is on the banquet, while the stars grow thin....
But three hundred miles from here, in Huai, official duties await him,
And so it's farewell, and the road again, under cloudy mountains.

李頎　聽董大彈胡笳聲兼寄語弄房給事 ON HEARING DONG PLAY THE FLAGEOLET
A POEM TO PALACE-ATTENDANT FANG
蔡女昔造胡笳聲
一彈一十有八拍
胡人落淚沾邊草
漢使斷腸對歸客
古戍蒼蒼烽火寒
大荒沈沈飛雪白
先拂聲弦後角羽
四郊秋葉驚 [扌戚][扌戚]
董夫子，通神明
深山竊聽來妖精
言遲更速皆應手
將往復旋如有情
空山百鳥散還合
萬里浮云陰且晴
嘶酸雛雁失群夜
斷絕胡兒戀母聲
川為靜其波
鳥亦罷其鳴
烏孫部落家鄉遠
邏娑沙塵哀怨生
幽音變調忽飄灑
長風吹林雨墮瓦
迸泉颯颯飛木末
野鹿呦呦走堂下
長安城連東掖垣
鳳凰池對青瑣門
高才脫略名與利
日夕望君抱琴至
When this melody for the flageolet was made by Lady Cai,
When long ago one by one she sang its eighteen stanzas,
Even the Tartars were shedding tears into the border grasses,
And the envoy of China was heart-broken, turning back home with his escort.
...Cold fires now of old battles are grey on ancient forts,
And the wilderness is shadowed with white new-flying snow.
...When the player first brushes the Shang string and the Jue and then the Yu,
Autumn-leaves in all four quarters are shaken with a murmur.
Dong, the master,
Must have been taught in heaven.
Demons come from the deep pine-wood and stealthily listen
To music slow, then quick, following his hand,
Now far away, now near again, according to his heart.
A hundred birds from an empty mountain scatter and return;
Three thousand miles of floating clouds darken and lighten;
A wildgoose fledgling, left behind, cries for its flock,
And a Tartar child for the mother he loves.
Then river waves are calmed
And birds are mute that were singing,
And Wuzu tribes are homesick for their distant land,
And out of the dust of Siberian steppes rises a plaintive sorrow.
...Suddenly the low sound leaps to a freer tune,
Like a long wind swaying a forest, a downpour breaking tiles,
A cascade through the air, flying over tree-tops.
...A wild deer calls to his fellows. He is running among the mansions
In the corner of the capital by the Eastern Palace wall....
Phoenix Lake lies opposite the Gate of Green Jade;
But how can fame and profit concern a man of genius?
Day and night I long for him to bring his lute again.

李頎　聽安萬善吹篳篥歌 ON HEARING AN WANSHAN PLAY THE REED-PIPE
南山截竹為篳篥
此樂本自龜茲出
流傳漢地曲轉奇
涼州胡人為我吹
傍鄰聞者多嘆息
遠客思鄉皆淚垂
世人解聽不解賞
長飆風中自來往
枯桑老柏寒颼 [風留]
九雛鳴鳳亂啾啾
龍吟虎嘯一時發
萬籟百泉相與秋
忽然更作漁陽摻
黃云蕭條白日暗
變調如聞楊柳春
上林繁花照眼新
歲夜高堂列明燭
美酒一杯聲一曲
Bamboo from the southern hills was used to make this pipe.
And its music, that was introduced from Persia first of all,
Has taken on new magic through later use in China.
And now the Tartar from Liangzhou, blowing it for me,
Drawing a sigh from whosoever hears it,
Is bringing to a wanderer's eyes homesick tears....
Many like to listen; but few understand.
To and fro at will there's a long wind flying,
Dry mulberry-trees, old cypresses, trembling in its chill.
There are nine baby phoenixes, outcrying one another;
A dragon and a tiger spring up at the same moment;
Then in a hundred waterfalls ten thousand songs of autumn
Are suddenly changing to The Yuyang Lament;
And when yellow clouds grow thin and the white sun darkens,
They are changing still again to Spring in the Willow Trees.
Like Imperial Garden flowers, brightening the eye with beauty,
Are the high-hall candles we have lighted this cold night,
And with every cup of wine goes another round of music.

孟浩然　夜歸鹿門山歌 RETURNING AT NIGHT TO LUMEN MOUNTAIN
山寺鐘鳴晝已昏
漁梁渡頭爭渡喧
人隨沙路向江村
余亦乘舟歸鹿門
鹿門月照開煙樹
忽到龐公棲隱處
巖扉松徑長寂寥
惟有幽人自來去
A bell in the mountain-temple sounds the coming of night.
I hear people at the fishing-town stumble aboard the ferry,
While others follow the sand-bank to their homes along the river.
...I also take a boat and am bound for Lumen Mountain --
And soon the Lumen moonlight is piercing misty trees.
I have come, before I know it, upon an ancient hermitage,
The thatch door, the piney path, the solitude, the quiet,
Where a hermit lives and moves, never needing a companion.

李白　廬山謠寄盧侍御虛舟 A SONG OF LU MOUNTAIN TO CENSOR LU XUZHOU
我本楚狂人
鳳歌笑孔丘
手持綠玉杖
朝別黃鶴樓
五岳尋仙不辭遠
一生好入名山游
廬山秀出南斗傍
屏風九疊云錦張
影落明湖青黛光
金闕前開二峰長
銀河倒掛三石梁
香爐瀑布遙相望
回崖沓障凌蒼蒼
翠影紅霞映朝日
鳥飛不到吳天長
登高壯觀天地間
大江茫茫去不黃
黃云萬里動風色
白波九道流雪山
好為廬山謠
興因廬山發
閑窺石鏡清我心
謝公行處蒼苔沒
早服還丹無世情
琴心三疊道初成
遙見仙人彩云里
手把芙蓉朝玉京
先期汗漫九垓上
愿接盧敖游太清
I am the madman of the Chu country
Who sang a mad song disputing Confucius.
...Holding in my hand a staff of green jade,
I have crossed, since morning at the Yellow Crane Terrace,
All five Holy Mountains, without a thought of distance,
According to the one constant habit of my life.
Lu Mountain stands beside the Southern Dipper
In clouds reaching silken like a nine-panelled screen,
With its shadows in a crystal lake deepening the green water.
The Golden Gate opens into two mountain-ranges.
A silver stream is hanging down to three stone bridges
Within sight of the mighty Tripod Falls.
Ledges of cliff and winding trails lead to blue sky
And a flush of cloud in the morning sun,
Whence no flight of birds could be blown into Wu.
...I climb to the top. I survey the whole world.
I see the long river that runs beyond return,
Yellow clouds that winds have driven hundreds of miles
And a snow-peak whitely circled by the swirl of a ninefold stream.
And so I am singing a song of Lu Mountain,
A song that is born of the breath of Lu Mountain.
...Where the Stone Mirror makes the heart's purity purer
And green moss has buried the footsteps of Xie,
I have eaten the immortal pellet and, rid of the world's troubles,
Before the lute's third playing have achieved my element.
Far away I watch the angels riding coloured clouds
Toward heaven's Jade City, with hibiscus in their hands.
And so, when I have traversed the nine sections of the world,
I will follow Saint Luao up the Great Purity.

李白　夢游天姥吟留別 TIANMU MOUNTAIN ASCENDED IN A DREAM
海客談瀛洲
煙濤微茫信難求
越人語天姥
云霓明滅或可睹
天姥連天向天橫
勢拔五岳掩赤城
天臺四萬八千丈
對此欲倒東南傾
我欲因之夢吳越
一夜飛渡鏡湖月
湖月照我影
送我至剡溪
謝公宿處今尚在
淥水蕩漾清猿啼
腳著謝公屐
身登青云梯
半壁見海日
空中聞天雞
千巖萬壑路不定
迷花倚石忽已暝
熊咆龍吟殷巖泉
栗深林兮驚層巔
云青青兮欲雨
水澹澹兮生煙
列缺霹靂
邱巒崩摧
洞天石扇
訇然中開
青冥浩蕩不見底
日月照耀金銀臺
霓為衣兮風為馬
云之君兮紛紛而來下
虎鼓瑟兮鸞回車
仙之人兮列如麻
忽魂悸以魄動
恍驚起而長嗟
惟覺時之枕席
失向來之煙霞
世間行樂亦如此
古來萬事東流水
別君去兮何時還
且放白鹿青崖間
須行即騎訪名山
安能摧眉折腰事權貴
使我不得開心顏
A seafaring visitor will talk about Japan,
Which waters and mists conceal beyond approach;
But Yueh people talk about Heavenly Mother Mountain,
Still seen through its varying deeps of cloud.
In a straight line to heaven, its summit enters heaven,
Tops the five Holy Peaks, and casts a shadow through China
With the hundred-mile length of the Heavenly Terrace Range,
Which, just at this point, begins turning southeast.
...My heart and my dreams are in Wu and Yueh
And they cross Mirror Lake all night in the moon.
And the moon lights my shadow
And me to Yan River --
With the hermitage of Xie still there
And the monkeys calling clearly over ripples of green water.
I wear his pegged boots
Up a ladder of blue cloud,
Sunny ocean half-way,
Holy cock-crow in space,
Myriad peaks and more valleys and nowhere a road.
Flowers lure me, rocks ease me. Day suddenly ends.
Bears, dragons, tempestuous on mountain and river,
Startle the forest and make the heights tremble.
Clouds darken with darkness of rain,
Streams pale with pallor of mist.
The Gods of Thunder and Lightning
Shatter the whole range.
The stone gate breaks asunder
Venting in the pit of heaven,
An impenetrable shadow.
...But now the sun and moon illumine a gold and silver terrace,
And, clad in rainbow garments, riding on the wind,
Come the queens of all the clouds, descending one by one,
With tigers for their lute-players and phoenixes for dancers.
Row upon row, like fields of hemp, range the fairy figures.
I move, my soul goes flying,
I wake with a long sigh,
My pillow and my matting
Are the lost clouds I was in.
...And this is the way it always is with human joy:
Ten thousand things run for ever like water toward the east.
And so I take my leave of you, not knowing for how long.
...But let me, on my green slope, raise a white deer
And ride to you, great mountain, when I have need of you.
Oh, how can I gravely bow and scrape to men of high rank and men of high office
Who never will suffer being shown an honest-hearted face!

李白　金陵酒肆留別 PARTING AT A WINE-SHOP IN NANJING
風吹柳花滿店香
吳姬壓酒喚客嘗
金陵子弟來相送
欲行不行各盡觴
請君試問東流水
別意與之誰短長
A wind, bringing willow-cotton, sweetens the shop,
And a girl from Wu, pouring wine, urges me to share it
With my comrades of the city who are here to see me off;
And as each of them drains his cup, I say to him in parting,
Oh, go and ask this river running to the east
If it can travel farther than a friend's love!

李白　宣州謝 [月兆]
樓餞別校書叔云
A FAREWELL TO SECRETARY SHUYUN
AT THE XIETIAO VILLA IN XUANZHOU
棄我去者
昨日之日不可留
亂我心者
今日之日多煩憂
長風萬里送秋雁
對此可以酣高樓
蓬萊文章建安骨
中間小謝又清發
俱懷逸興壯思飛
欲上青天覽明月
抽刀斷水水更流
舉杯銷愁愁更愁
人生在世不稱意
明朝散發弄扁舟
Since yesterday had to throw me and bolt,
Today has hurt my heart even more.
The autumn wildgeese have a long wind for escort
As I face them from this villa, drinking my wine.
The bones of great writers are your brushes, in the School of Heaven,
And I am a Lesser Xie growing up by your side.
We both are exalted to distant thought,
Aspiring to the sky and the bright moon.
But since water still flows, though we cut it with our swords,
And sorrows return, though we drown them with wine,
Since the world can in no way answer our craving,
I will loosen my hair tomorrow and take to a fishingboat.

岑參　走馬川行奉送封大夫出師西征
A SONG OF RUNNING-HORSE RIVER IN FAREWELL
TO GENERAL FENG OF THE WESTERN EXPEDITION
君不見走馬川行雪海邊
平沙莽莽黃入天
輪臺九月風夜吼
一川碎石大如斗
隨風滿地石亂走
匈奴草黃馬正肥
金山西見煙塵飛
漢家大將西出師
將軍金甲夜不脫
半夜軍行戈相撥
風頭如刀面如割
馬毛帶雪汗氣蒸
五花連錢旋作冰
幕中草檄硯水凝
虜騎聞之應膽懾
料知短兵不敢接
車師西門佇獻捷
Look how swift to the snowy sea races Running-Horse River! --
And sand, up from the desert, flies yellow into heaven.
This Ninth-month night is blowing cold at Wheel Tower,
And valleys, like peck measures, fill with the broken boulders
That downward, headlong, follow the wind.
...In spite of grey grasses, Tartar horses are plump;
West of the Hill of Gold, smoke and dust gather.
O General of the Chinese troops, start your campaign!
Keep your iron armour on all night long,
Send your soldiers forward with a clattering of weapons!
...While the sharp wind's point cuts the face like a knife,
And snowy sweat steams on the horses' backs,
Freezing a pattern of five-flower coins,
Your challenge from camp, from an inkstand of ice,
Has chilled the barbarian chieftain's heart.
You will have no more need of an actual battle! --
We await the news of victory, here at the western pass!

岑參　輪臺歌奉送封大夫出師西征 A SONG OF WHEEL TOWER IN FAREWELL TO GENERAL
FENG OF THE WESTERN EXPEDITION
輪臺城頭夜吹角
輪臺城北旄頭落
羽書昨夜過渠黎
單于已在金山西
戍樓西望煙塵黑
漢兵屯在輪臺北
上將擁旄西出征
平明吹笛大軍行
四邊伐鼓雪海涌
三軍大呼陰山動
虜塞兵氣連云屯
戰場白骨纏草根
劍河風急雪片闊
沙口石凍馬蹄脫
亞相勤王甘苦辛
誓將報主靜邊塵
古來青史誰不見
今見功名勝古人
On Wheel Tower parapets night-bugles are blowing,
Though the flag at the northern end hangs limp.
Scouts, in the darkness, are passing Quli,
Where, west of the Hill of Gold, the Tartar chieftain has halted
We can see, from the look-out, the dust and black smoke
Where Chinese troops are camping, north of Wheel Tower.
...Our flags now beckon the General farther west-
With bugles in the dawn he rouses his Grand Army;
Drums like a tempest pound on four sides
And the Yin Mountains shake with the shouts of ten thousand;
Clouds and the war-wind whirl up in a point
Over fields where grass-roots will tighten around white bones;
In the Dagger River mist, through a biting wind,
Horseshoes, at the Sand Mouth line, break on icy boulders.
...Our General endures every pain, every hardship,
Commanded to settle the dust along the border.
We have read, in the Green Books, tales of old days-
But here we behold a living man, mightier than the dead.

岑參　白雪歌送武判官歸京 A SONG OF WHITE SNOW IN FAREWELL
TO FIELD-CLERK WU GOING HOME
北風卷地白草折
胡天八月即飛雪
忽如一夜春風來
千樹萬樹梨花開
散入珠簾濕羅幕
狐裘不暖錦衾薄
將軍角弓不得控
都護鐵衣冷猶著
瀚海闌干百丈冰
愁云黲淡萬里凝
中軍置酒飲歸客
胡琴琵琶與羌笛
紛紛暮雪下轅門
風掣紅旗凍不翻
輪臺東門送君去
去時雪滿天山路
山回路轉不見君
雪上空留馬行處
The north wind rolls the white grasses and breaks them;
And the Eighth-month snow across the Tartar sky
Is like a spring gale, come up in the night,
Blowing open the petals of ten thousand peartrees.
It enters the pearl blinds, it wets the silk curtains;
A fur coat feels cold, a cotton mat flimsy;
Bows become rigid, can hardly be drawn
And the metal of armour congeals on the men;
The sand-sea deepens with fathomless ice,
And darkness masses its endless clouds;
But we drink to our guest bound home from camp,
And play him barbarian lutes, guitars, harps;
Till at dusk, when the drifts are crushing our tents
And our frozen red flags cannot flutter in the wind,
We watch him through Wheel-Tower Gate going eastward.
Into the snow-mounds of Heaven-Peak Road....
And then he disappears at the turn of the pass,
Leaving behind him only hoof-prints.