孟郊诗

Poems of Meng Jiao


Index

秋夕贫居述怀

Autumn Evening in a Hovel. My Feelings.


卧冷无远梦
听秋酸别情
高枝低枝风
千叶万叶声

Lying cold, between endless dreams,
I hear autumn sourly depart.
Wind beats high branches against the low
And thousands of leaves cry out.

浅井不供饮
瘦田长废耕
今交非古交
贫语闻皆轻

Shallow wells without enough to drink.
Lean fields abandoned by the plough.
Modern society is unlike the ancient.
Too many words falling on everyone's frivolous ears.

-- 孟郊


废话

In an eight line poem, the pattern is often two lines of immediate perception, four lines of playing with ideas, two more lines of perception, now recast by the play of ideas. Meng Jiao is playing with that form here, twisting it, so that you think the mid-lines are perceptions. But they aren't. They're the play of ideas cast as perceptions. When you realize this, you find yourself working backwards from the end, going, "Oh... yeah...."


Index