The Lunar New Year’s Day
In crackers’ cracking noise the old year passed away;
The vernal breeze brings us warm wine and warm spring day.
On thousand doors the sun sheds brilliant light, behold!
New couplets hang on the doors to replace the old.
-Wang Anshi
The Pavilion Of Swallows
I
Upstairs the dying lamp flickers with morning frost;
The lonely widow rises from her nuptial bed.
Sleepless the whole night long, in mournful thoughts she’s lost;
The night seems endless as the boundless sky o’erhead.
II
The pines before his grave are shrouded in sad smoke;
In the Swallows’ Pavilion pensive she appears.
Her songs are hushed for buried are his sword and cloak;
Her dancing dress has lost its perfume for ten years.
III
She’s seen wild gees from her lord’s grave on backward way,
And now she sees the swallows come with spring again.
On flute and zither she is in no mood to play;
Buried in spider’s webs and dusty they remain.
-Zhang Zhongsu
Reply of A Chaste Wife
You know I love my husband best,
Yet two bright pearls are sent me still.
I hang them in my red silk vest,
So grateful I’m for your good will.
You see my house o’erlooks the garden and
My husband guards the palace, halberd in hand.
I know your heart as noble as the sun in the skies,
But I have sworn to serve my husband all my life.
With your twin pearls I send back two tears from my eyes.
Would we had met before I was a wife!
-Zhang Ji
Spring View
We don’t enjoy together blooming flowers,
Nor at their fall together shed our tears.
O why am I lovesick from hour to hour
To see flowers appear or disappear!
-Xue Tao
Success At The Civil Service Exam
Gone are all my past woes! What more have I to say?
My body and my mind enjoy their fill today.
Successful, faster runs my horse in vernal breeze;
I’ve seen within one day all flowers on Chang’ an trees.
-Meng Jiao
February 12, 2021, was the beginning of the Chinese Lunar New Year, recognized as the Year of the Ox. In China, the celebrations continue as the New Year is the largest and most popular festival among that nation’s people. Festivities picked up pace on New Year’s Eve (Friday, February 11). The revels, dinners and traditional rituals were followed by the public holidays during which Chinese were off work for 7 days from February 12 to 18. But even after that holiday period, the New Year’s season continues until February 26 when the Lantern Festival ends.
