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Dēng Chí Shàng LóuClimbing the Pond Tower 登池上楼

Xie Lingyun (谢灵运, also known as )｜Liu Song｜five-character ancient-style poem

Xie Lingyun, recovering from illness, sees spring grass by the pond and new birdsong.

Original Chinese text with pinyin

池塘生春草
chí táng shēng chūn cǎo

园柳变鸣禽
yuán liǔ biàn míng qín

Simplified characters; traditional title: 登池上樓. This is a long poem; only the best-known lines are shown, and “……” marks omitted passages.

Note on the text: This page presents a well-known excerpt; the full poem is longer in the traditional corpus.

By the pond the spring grass has sprung up;

in the garden willows the birds have changed their songs.

Original translation by Poetune — literal but poetic, written for this site.

池塘生春草 · chí táng shēng chūn cǎo — By the pond the spring grass has sprung up;

园柳变鸣禽 · yuán liǔ biàn míng qín — in the garden willows the birds have changed their songs.

Xie Lingyun, recovering from illness, sees spring grass by the pond and new birdsong. The scene stays with you.

Xie Lingyun, recovering from illness, sees spring grass by the pond and new birdsong.

Xie Lingyun perfected landscape poetry in the Southern Dynasties.

Lifetime: 385–433. Other famous works: Climbing the Pond Tower (登池上楼).