May 23, 2021

The Blue-Green Stream

Wang Wei

^{Translated by Florence Ayscough and Amy Lowell}

Every time I have started for the Yellow Flower River,
I have gone down the Blue-Green Stream,
Following the hills, making ten thousand turnings,
We go along rapidly, but advance scarcely one hundred li.
We are in the midst of a noise of water,
Of the confused and mingled sounds of water broken by stones,
And in the deep darkness of pine trees.
Rocked, rocked,
Moving on and on,
We float past water-chestnuts
Into a still clearness reflecting reeds and rushes.
My heart is clean and white as silk; it has already achieved Peace;
It is smooth as the placid river.
I love to stay here, curled up on the rocks,
Dropping my fish-line forever.

This poem is in the public domain. Published in Poem-a-Day on May 23, 2021, by the Academy of American Poets.

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“The Blue-Green Stream” appeared in Fir-Flower Tablets (Houghton Mifflin Company, 1921).

Wang Wei was a Chinese poet who lived in the eighth century (701–761 C.E.) during the Tang dynasty. Wei, along with his contemporaries Li Po and Tu Fu, is considered one of the greatest poets in China’s literary history. A painter as well as a poet, in both his artwork and verse, Wei was known for his interest in and attention to landscapes.

Florence Ayscough was born on January 21, 1875, in Shanghai, China. A sinologist, editor, writer, and translator of Chinese literature, she published her first book Fir-Flower Tablets (Houghton Mifflin Company, 1921), a book of translations of Chinese poems, with Amy Lowell. The author of many books, and lecturer on Chinese art and literature, as well as librarian of the Royal Asiatic Society in Shanghai, she died on April 24, 1917.

Amy Lowell was born on February 9, 1874, in Brookline, Massachusetts. Lowell campaigned for the success of Imagist poetry in America and embraced its principles in her own work. Her books include What’s O’Clock (Houghton Mifflin Company, 1925), winner of the Pulitzer Prize. A dedicated poet, publicity agent, collector, critic, and lecturer, Lowell died on May 12, 1925.

Fir-Flower Tablets
(Houghton Mifflin Company, 1921)

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Thanks to Sumita Chakraborty, author of Arrow (Alice James, 2020), who curated Poem-a-Day for this month’s weekdays. Read a Q&A about Chakraborty’s curatorial approach and find out more about our guest editors for the year.

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"The Blue-Green Stream" by Wang Wei, translated by Florence Ayscough and Amy Lowell

The Blue-Green Stream

Subscribe to the Poem-a-Day Podcast

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