5 Tang Poems

The following poems were written during the Tang Dynasty (618-906 AD). They are from a well known collection call the "Tang 300 Poems", or TangShi SanBaiShou. The pronunciations given in the second column are all in Mandarin Chinese. Some of them still rhyme, and all can be read even though its has been around 1200 years or more since they were written.

The translations are my own, and therefore, not very poetic and act as a guide to understanding only.

The form of the Chinese character poems are as follows.

• Title
• Author
  The Surname comes first in Chinese names, and this is maintained below. The Given name is sometimes two_syllable and sometimes one_syllable. The authors are this surnamed Meng, Li, He, Liu, and Jia.
• Poem
  Chinese poetry during this time achieved a peak of excellence. Of these authors, Li Bai is perhaps most famous. The poetry here are of two sorts (out of many). They are five syllable lines of four lines long, and seven syllable lines of four lines long.

  Chinese poetry, of this four line type, has the rule of rhyming on the last syllable of the first, second and fourth lines only.

  Although Chinese is has "tones", they have not been included then here. Tones are also paramount to the rhyming of poetry in Chinese.

  All the following Chinese character verses are read horizontally from left to right. In the past, they would have been written in columns from top to bottom per line, and each line following right to the left.

	Chun Xiao Meng HaoRen Chun min bu jiao hao Chu chu wen ti niao Ye lai yu shui sheng Hua le zhi duo xiao	Spring Morning by Meng HaoRen Spring, a night's restless sleep, awakened Everywhere the songs of birds In the night the wind and rain I wonder, how many flowers have fallen?

	Jing Ye Si Li Bai Chuang qian ming ye guang Yi shi di shang shuang Ju tou wang ming yue Di tou si gu xiang	Quiet Night Thoughts by Li Bai Before the bed I lie on, the moon is shining The moonlight cast upon the floor like frost While I raise my head to gaze at the moon I lower it to think of village home

	Hui Xiang Ou Shu He Zhizhang Shao xiao li jia lao da hui Xiang yin wu hai bin mao cui Er tong xiang jian bu xiang shi Xiao wen ke cong he chu lai	Returning Home by He Zhizhang I left this village in my youth, returning, now I'm old The village accent hasn't changed, my fringe grown grey The youngsters see me but they don't know me Half laughing, they who am I and where I come from

	Yue Ye Liu Fangping Geng shen yue se ban ren jia Bei dou lan gan nan dou xia Jin ye pian zhi chun qi nuan Cong sheng xin tou lu chuang sha	Moonlit Night by Liu Fangping In the deep of the night, the moon lights up half the room The Plough and southern stars and beginning to descend This night I feel the coming of spring from the warm breeze Insects are newly calling through the window's drapes

	Xin Yin Zhe Bu Yu Jia Dao Song xia wen tong zi Yan shi cai yue qu Zhi zai ci shan zhong Yun shen bu zhi chu	Seeking the Sage but not meeting by Jia Dao Beneath a pine tree I asked a boy He says his master has gone to collect herbs "He's somewhere on this mountain here, But because of the cloudy mists, I don't know where he is!"

This page and images were created on Wednesday 7th February 2001.