A night-mooring near maple bridge By Zhang Ji

While I watch the moon go down, a crow caws through the frost;
Under the shadows of maple-trees a fisherman moves with his torch;
And I hear, from beyond Su-chou, from the temple on Cold Mountain,
Ringing for me, here in my boat, the midnight bell.

Original Poem:

Interpretation:

This is a famous poem that expresses the thoughts of traveling.

In the first two lines, the moon has already set, the crows are cawing and the cold air fills the sky. Facing the maple trees by the river and the fishing fire on the boat, I am sad and hard to sleep.

These two lines are about what the poet saw and felt in the boat when he moored on the maple bridge at night. The long night is hard to sleep, all kinds of things around can stimulate the poet’s sensitive nerves. The moon gradually went down, the night is half over, in the tree sleeping crows because of the change of light and cawed a few times in their sleep, to the poet’s ears, touching the poet’s deep feelings.

In the late fall, the middle of the night on the riverboat cold, the poet looked at the sky and the river, feel everywhere is white, as if the white dew for frost, falling from the sky. The poet vaguely feels that there are rows of maple trees on the riverbank, but they look very hazy in the night color and cannot be seen clearly. On the river, occasionally there are a few fishing fires, visible in this night moored outside not only a poet, they are not the same as the poet as the night scene is full of sadness lying difficult to sleep?

These two lines of the poem describes a lot of scenery, are not lost its original face, but at this time and place, but all can set off the poet’s inner sorrow, can trigger the poet’s sadness, so that the poet’s feelings, difficult to sleep.

The last two lines: Gusu city outside the cold mountain temple, in the middle of the night ringing the bell to the passenger ship I rode.

Just when the poet is full of thoughts facing the cold night, suddenly the Cold Mountain Temple outside Gusu came a few sparse bells, the sound of the bells through the night, echoing in the air. The sound of the bells seems to come from heaven, in this night of silence, knocking on the poet’s heart, without realizing it, the poet suddenly realized a trace of the mysterious Zen, and instantly settled down. The sound of the bell dispersed the poet’s sadness of traveling, and sent a touch of solace and revelation.

Through describing various emotionally charged scenes, the poem creates a poignant, hazy and mysterious mood, expressing the poet’s thoughts of travel and his realization of Zen, with a long meaning that is intriguing but difficult to describe, and has been sung by people for thousands of years.

Translator:

Kiang Kanghu

About the poet:

Zhang Ji (张继), date of birth and death unknown, was a native of Xiangfan, Hubei Province. He was admitted as a scholar in 753 AD. His poems are mostly about traveling to places of worship.