Birthday poem · October 27Frost’s Descent, the 18th solar term: the first frosts.

Birthday poem card for October 27: “For Han Chuo in Yangzhou” by Du Mu. Birth character 草, grass.

Birth character

草 cǎo · grass

草 means grass or any small plant.

離離原上草
“Wild grasses spread across the plain” — Bai Juyi, ‘Grass on the Ancient Plain: A Farewell’

Other dates with this poem: August 28

The poem

“For Han Chuo in Yangzhou” 寄揚州韓綽判官

  1. 青山隱隱水迢迢Blue hills faint, faint, waters far, far away;
  2. 秋盡江南草未凋autumn ends in the south, but the grass has not withered.
  3. 二十四橋明月夜On a moonlit night at the Twenty-Four Bridges,
  4. 玉人何處教吹簫where is the jade-like one teaching the flute?

Du Mu 杜牧 · Tang dynasty · 803–852 · seven-character verse

English translation by Poetune.

Why this poem

Du Mu writes to a friend about moonlit nights at Yangzhou's Twenty-four Bridges.

This day in the Chinese calendar

Solar term: Frost’s Descent.

Make a card for someone

Add a name and a short message to this card

Your text is turned into an image on this screen only. Nothing is sent anywhere.