Grass ripples like jade-colored silk,
mulberry trees hang boughs of green.
By the time you long for home, dear,
my heart will have already broken.
Strangers with the spring breeze
what business does it have
parting my bedside curtains?
Classical Chinese poetry is quite difficult to capture in translation, but I’ve always felt the sentiment and imagery in this poem from Li Bai (Li Po; 705 – 762) bridges the cultural and linguistic gaps better than most. The poem is written from the perspective a woman whose husband is away indefinitely. Perhaps he’s away at war, or perhaps traveling for other reasons and simply enjoying himself – for me the words imply the latter, as the narrator imagines that his thoughts have yet to return home.
燕草如碧丝，秦桑低绿枝。
当君怀归日，是妾断肠时。
春风不相识，何事入罗帏？
For those interested in the Chinese, a direct word-for-word translation is as follows:
| 燕 | Yan | Yan |
| 草 | cao | grass |
| 如 | ru | like |
| 碧 | bi | jade, blue-green |
| 丝 | si | silk, thread |
| 秦 | Qin | Qin |
| 桑 | sang | mulberries |
| 低 | di | hang |
| 绿 | lü | green |
| 枝 | zhi | branch |
| 当 | Dang | When |
| 君 | jun | gentleman [you] |
| 怀 | huai | think |
| 归 | gui | return |
| 日 | ri | day |
| 是 | shi | is |
| 妾 | qie | wife [I] |
| 断 | duan | break |
| 肠 | chang | intestine |
| 时 | shi | time |
| 春 | Chun | Spring |
| 风 | feng | wind |
| 不 | bu | not |
| 相 | xiang | each other |
| 识 | shi | know |
| 何 | he | what |
| 事 | shi | business |
| 入 | ru | enter |
| 罗 | luo | gauze |
| 帏 | wei | curtains |