I enjoy the challenge of translating Chinese poems.
Autumn Night Song is a 7-character jueju by Zhang Zhongsu, Tang dynasty.
The steady drip of the water clock marks the many hours of darkness;
Scattered hazy clouds unveil moonbeams.
Autumn spurs hidden insects to nightlong chirping.
I haven’t sent his winter clothes: let the frost stay away!
Du Fu‘s melancholy “Spring Scene” was written during the chaos and destruction of the An Lushan rebellion.
There are many different translations, for example.
This is mine:
Mountains round the ruined city,
Spring-grown grass on walls and towers.
Weeping in the time of flowers,
Birdsong jars the parted heart.
Three long months the beacons burned,
No gold worth a loving letter.
White head thinned by fearful fretting,
Cannot hold a single pin.
Hills like heaped gold are quenched,
Her cloud of hair loves the scent of her powdered cheek.
Languidly she draws in her moth eyebrows,
Plays with her hairpins and comb, washing slowly
Blooms surround her in the mirror.
The faces of the flowers seem like the reflections of friends
Newlywed, she dutifully embroiders the gauze jacket
With a pair of golden partridges.