孟郊诗

Poems of Meng Jiao


Index

答友人赠炭

For my friends who brought the charcoal


青山白屋有仁人
赠炭价重双乌银
驱却坐上千重寒
烧出炉中一片春
吹霞弄日光不定
暖得曲身成直身

Blue mountain, white house, with kind people.
Gift of charcoal, priceless as two silver crows.
Hard ride in a cart through this harshest of cold.
Flames emerge from the oven like slivers of spring.
Red glow plays at sunlight with uncertain gleams.
Warm now, a gnarled body finally straightens out.

-- 孟郊


废话

This is probably Meng Jiao's copy of a thank-you note to his mountain neighbors, just as it seems. So it could come from any period of his life. He had no periods where he was not in the mountains. And one can go up in the mountains in late August or early April for a Saturday and spend a week up there snowed in. What "a pair of sliver crows" (双乌银) refers to, I couldn't tell you. I suppose, if I had to guess, this is in fact a later poem and probably correctly placed in the scrolls.


Index