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On first looking into Chapman’s Homer
The speaker likens years of reading to travel through golden realms and western islands, says he never breathed the pure air of Homer's domain until he heard Chapman, and compares the moment to an astronomer sighting a new planet and to explorers staring silently at an unknown ocean.
Written on Coming Home
I left home young and come back old; my home accent unchanged, the hair at my temples thinned. The children see me and do not know me; laughing, they ask where the guest has come from.
回乡偶书
A Farewell to the World
The speaker bids a false world good night, recounts how it abused his early years and rewarded rumour, envy and ignorance, and resolves to bear age, sickness and misfortune with strengths kept at home rather than seek peace by wandering.
Hearing a Flute by Night on the Shouxiang Wall
Before Huile Peak the sand is like snow; beyond the Shouxiang wall the moon is like frost. No one knows where a reed pipe is being blown— all night the campaigning men gaze toward home.
夜上受降城闻笛
WHEN icicles hang by the wall
Winter cold, frozen milk, foul roads, wind and coughing are set against the owl's nightly cry, which the refrain calls a merry note while Joan keels the pot.
Remorse
At nightfall a voice commands departure: duty and dereliction guide the addressee back to solitude, then to a sad, silent home of bitter tears and ghostlike shades. The poem says the soul or the world must fade before the addressee can meet peace. Cloud shadows, winds, ocean and whatever moves, toils or grieves all have their appointed sleep, and the addressee shall rest in the grave; yet until the phantoms that house, heath and garden once made dear have fled, remembrance, repentance and deep musings remain bound to the music of two voices and the light of one sweet smile.
To Helen
Classical images of ships, Greece, Rome, and Psyche make beauty a guiding presence that leads a weary wanderer home.
Lines
Starting from a shattered lamp, a scattered cloud and a broken lute, the poem argues that when hearts have once mingled love leaves first and the weaker one is left to endure alone, and asks why Love makes the frailest thing its cradle, home and bier.
Quiet Night Thoughts
Moonlight before my bed— I take it for frost upon the ground. I lift my head and gaze at the bright moon; I lower it, thinking of home.
静夜思