Category: Chinese Reading

Lovesickness长相思

Lovesickness
Learn Chinese – Chinese Literature
—Li Bai I yearn for one
Who's in Changan.
In autumn crickets wail beside the golden rail;
The First frost, although light, invades the bed's delight.
My lonely lamp burns dull, of longing I would die;
Rolling up screens to view the moon, in vain I sigh.
My flower-like beauty is high
Up as clouds in the sky.
Above, the boundless heaven blue is seen;
Below, the endless river rolls its billows green.
My soul can't fly o'er sky so vast nor earth so wide;
In dreams I can't go through mofintain pass to her side.
We are so far apart,
The yearning breaks my heart.

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Tao Yao 诗经 桃夭

Tao Yao
Learn Chinese – Chinese Literature The peach tree is young and elegant ;
Brilliant are its flowers .
This young lady is going to her future home ,
And will order well her chamber and house .
The peach tree is young and elegant ;
Abundant will be its fruits .
This young lady is going to her future home ,
And will order well her chamber and house .
The peach tree is young and elegant ;
Luxuriant are its leaves .
This young lady is going to her future home ,
And will order well her family .

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Saying Good-bye to Cambridge Again 再别康桥

Saying Good-bye to Cambridge Again
–by Xu Zhimo

Very quietly I take my leave
As quietly as I came here;
Quietly I wave good-bye
To the rosy clouds in the western sky.
The golden willows by the riverside
Are young brides in the setting sun;
Their reflections on the shimmering waves
Always linger in the depth of my heart.
The floating heart growing in the sludge
Sways leisurely under the water;
In the gentle waves of Cambridge
I would be a water plant!
That pool under the shade of elm trees
Holds not water but the rainbow from the sky;
Shattered to pieces among the duckweeds
Is the sediment of a rainbow-like dream?
To seek a dream? Just to pole a boat upstream
To wher the green grass is more verdant;
Or to have the boat fully loaded with starlight
And sing aloud in the splendour of starlight.
But I cannot sing aloud
Quietness is my farewell music;
Even summer insects heep silence for me
Silent is Cambridge tonight!
Very quietly I take my leave
As quietly as I came here;
Gently I flick my sleeves
Not even a wisp of cloud will I bring away
注释:

*take a/one’s leave: 别离

*wave good-bye: 挥手告别

*rosy: 玫瑰色的(此处喻云彩之美丽的色彩)

*willow: 柳树

*bride: 新娘(如要表示“新郎”则用bridegroom)

*heart: 植物叶面之中心部分

*sludge: 软泥

*sway: 摇摆

*leisurely: 悠闲地;从容不迫地

*elm: 榆树

*shatter: 破碎

*duckweed: 浮萍

*sediment: 沉淀

*pole: 作名词时表示“竿”,这里表示“用竹篙撑船”

*upstream: 沿河而上

*verdant: 翠绿的

*splendour: 壮丽之光彩

*heap: 堆积

*flick: 轻拂

*sleeve: 衣袖

*wisp: 小捆

再别康桥
                —徐志摩

轻轻的我走了,
正如我轻轻的来;
我轻轻的招手,
作别西天的云彩。

那河畔的金柳
是夕阳中的新娘
波光里的艳影,
在我的心头荡漾。

软泥上的青荇,
油油的在水底招摇;
在康河的柔波里,
我甘心做一条水草

那榆荫下的一潭,
不是清泉,是天上虹
揉碎在浮藻间,
沉淀着彩虹似的梦。

寻梦? 撑一支长篙,
向青草更青处漫溯,
满载一船星辉,
在星辉斑斓里放歌

但我不能放歌,
悄悄是别离的笙箫;
夏虫也为我沉默,
沉默是今晚的康桥!

悄悄的我走了,
正如我悄悄的来;
我挥一挥衣袖,
不带走一片云彩。

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Song of the Wanderer 游子吟

Song of the Wanderer
Meng Jiao (Tang)
The thread moves in the hand of the mother kind,
To weave a garment for the wanderer to wear.
As the mother plies the needle with much care,
Anxiety for her son's tarry out so troubles her mind.
Oh, can the tender plant have enough to pay,
For the sunshine of so many a spring day?

Comment:
By presenting the everyday scene of Mother sewing the garment for her departing son, the poet glorifies the greatest universal love in the world–

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Chance 偶然

Chance
                    by Xu Zhimo
I am a cloud in the sky,
A chance shadow on the wave of your heart.
Don't be surprised,
Or too elated;
In an instant I shall vanish without trace.

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A Blossom Tree 一颗开花的树

A Sad Poem on Persistent Love It was twelve years ago that I first listened to the poem. At that time I was a young girl at college. I have some close friends of my hometown. We get known each other at the age 14 when we in middle school. We kept a practice to gather roughly twice each year to have some fun before we got married and settled down. I remembered that it was the second year of my college life. Chang, one of my close friends, recited this poem to us. But she cried with tears on half way and she couldn’t go to the end. We didn’t talk much on it and diverted to other topic, but each of us had known his feeling, a past sad love.

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Mĭn nóng悯农

 Mĭn nóng
悯农
Chú hé rì dāng wŭ,
锄禾日当午,
Hàn dī hé xià tŭ.
汗滴禾下土。
Shuí zhī pán zhōng cān,
谁知盘中餐,
Lì lì jiē xīn kŭ.
粒粒皆辛苦。
Commiseration for the Peasants
At noontide the peasants weed the fields of crops,
Their sweats into the soil fall in endless drops.
But from the table bowl, who can ever know,
How all the grains from the peasants' labor grow?

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Fish for the Moon in the Well

One evening, the clever man, Huojia went to fetch some water from the well. To his surprise, when he looked into the well, he found the moon sunk in the well shining. "Oh, good Heavens, what a pity! The beautiful moon has dropped into the well!" so he dashed home for a hook, and tied it with the rope for his bucket, then put it into the well to fish for the moon.

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