Shandong Culture

Qingming Festival in ancient Chinese poems

By Li Ping (chinadaily.com.cn) Updated: 2018-04-03

Qingming Festival in ancient Chinese poems

3. Tune: Wind Through Pines

Tune: Wind Through Pines is a masterpiece of Song Dynasty poet Wu Wenying (1200-1260). Between the lines lies the author's grief over the rainy spring and parting with beloved ones. Here is an excerpt:

Hearing the wind and rain while mourning for the dead,
Sadly I draft an elegy on flowers.
Over dark green lane hang willow twigs like thread,
We parted before the bowers.
Each twig revealing our tender feeling.
I drown my grief in wine in chilly spring;
Drowsy, I wake again when orioles sing.