Bai Juyi: After This Apricot Orchard Blossoms

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After This Apricot Orchard Blossoms, Send This As a Gift to Mid-Level Government Official Liu

杏 园 花 下 赠 刘 郎 中
怪 君 把 酒 偏 惆 怅
曾 是 贞 云 花 下 人。
自 别 花 来 多 少 事
东 风 二 十 四 回 春。
Xing Yuan Hua Xia Zeng Liu Lang Zhong

Guai jun ba jiu pan chou chang
Ceng shi zhen yun hua xia ren.
Zi bie hua lai duo shao shi
Dong feng er shi si hui chun.

 

After This Apricot Orchard Blossoms, Send This As a Gift to Mid-Level Government Official Liu

Blame you for holding your wine and tending to your melancholy
Once we were together inside clouds of blossoms, you visited them again.
Naturally after you wrote your two satirical poems, these flowers continue to open up yearly
After twenty-four springs the eastern breezes brought you back to me.

 

Notes:

Liu and Bai Juyi met in the capital at an early age as exam candidates. After exam completion and graduation, Liu started a series of government positions. In the capital of Chang’an, he wrote a famous poem about blossoms and flowers intertwined with allusions condemning palace policies. After a period of exile, he returned again to the same apricot garden, to the same trees. Liu then wrote a second famous poem chronicling his life as a palace favorite, then to being out of favor, moving back and forth many times between the two.  Many government officials followed a similar fate.

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