Chinese Poems

Here are voices speaking from three thousand years ago, translated for an English-speaking world that had only just begun to listen. This 1919 collection gathers poems from the ancient Shi-King through the luminous Tang Dynasty, presented with the care of a translator who understood that meaning alone is not enough: the breath, the pause, the weight of silence must cross the bridge between languages too. These are poems of snow on mountains, of lovers parted by distance, of drinking alone beneath the moon and finding it enough. Some translations feel archaic to modern ears, and that is precisely their power: they capture a moment when Western readers first reached across the Pacific and found Chinese poets waiting for them. Whether you come seeking the famous Tang masters or the less familiar voices of earlier centuries, you will find here an invitation to sit with verse that has outlived dynasties, wars, and the rise and fall of empires. It endures because the feelings have not changed: we still watch the seasons turn, still ache for what we cannot keep, still find that a well-turned line can make the world briefly legible.