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Why the Moon Waxes and Wanes

Public-domain English source text from Elphinstone Dayrell’s 1910 collection. This colonial-era retelling is preserved as a historical source, not presented as a contemporary or exhaustive account of Nigerian culture.

Why the Sun and the Moon live in the Sky

Public-domain English source text from Elphinstone Dayrell’s 1910 collection. This colonial-era retelling is preserved as a historical source, not presented as a contemporary or exhaustive account of Nigerian culture.

Drinking Alone under the Moon I

Among the flowers, a jug of wine; I drink alone, with no companion near. I raise my cup and invite the bright moon— with my shadow, we become three.

月下独酌·其一

Blossoms in Bloom, Moon at Its Fullest

a wish for happiness and reunion

花好月圆

For Music

The speaker tells the addressee that their voice works like music over water, holding the waves still and the winds dreaming, so that the listening spirit bows in adoration while the midnight moon lies on a gently breathing sea.

Out Beyond the Passes

The bright moon of Qin, the frontier pass of Han; from the march of ten thousand li the men have not returned. If only the Flying General of Longcheng were here, he would not let the Hu horses cross the Yin Mountains.

出塞

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

Mooring for the Night on the Jiande River

I move the boat and moor by a misted sandbar; the sun sets, and a traveler's sorrow is new again. The plain is wide, the sky hangs below the trees; the river is clear, and the moon comes close to a person.

宿建德江

The World

The sonnet complains that getting and spending have laid waste our powers and left us out of tune with sea and wind, and the speaker declares he would rather be a pagan of an outworn creed if that let him glimpse Proteus and hear Triton's horn.

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.

We’ll go no more a-roving

The speakers still feel love and brightness, yet accept that the heart, sword, and soul must rest and that their nightly roaming must pause.

Mooring on the Qinhuai

Mist wraps the cold water, moonlight wraps the sand; at night I moor on the Qinhuai, close by the wine houses. The singing women do not know the grief of a fallen state; across the water they are still singing 'Flowers of the Rear Courtyard.'

泊秦淮

Bards of Passion and of Mirth

Addressing dead poets who left their souls on earth, the poem imagines their other souls conversing among Elysian lawns, rose-scented daisies and a nightingale that sings divine truth, then turns back to the earthly works that still teach the living about sorrow, passion, glory and shame.

Bamboo Lodge

Alone I sit deep in the shaded bamboo, playing the zither and then whistling long. Deep in the wood no one knows of it— the bright moon comes and shines on me.

竹里馆

OVER hill, over dale

A fairy servant tells of wandering everywhere swifter than the moon's sphere in the fairy queen's service, and departs to seek dew-drops to hang on the cowslips.

THE Star that bids the Shepherd fold

As the evening star rises and the sun sinks westward, the speaker declares severity asleep and calls for feasting, tipsy dance and midnight revelry, ending with a summons to knit hands in a round.

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