Autumn Evening, by Du Mu

A quick standard

杜牧  秋夕
银烛秋光冷画屏，轻罗小扇扑流萤。
天阶夜色凉如水，坐看牵牛织女星。


Autumn Evening
Du Mu

A silver candle’s autumn light
Cools the hardwood panels,
And fireflies are swatted back
With a fan of delicate silk.
The steps that night is staining black
Are cold to touch, like water,
She sits to watch the parted stars
Of Cowherd and Weaver Girl.

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Some poems need agonising and repeated reworkings. Others just fall into English like they always belonged there. I’m not sure if that’s a sign of experience or just me getting sloppy!

Du Mu (803-852) was a late Tang poet, who had read the same Tang greats that we have read, and was now working in their shadow. Some of his work, as this poem, is simply an addition to the canon of variations on classic poetic scenes, in this case the wife parted from her husband. Many of the elements of this poem are extremely conventional, but Du adds a tactile element in the cooling hardwood and cold-as-water steps.

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杜牧  秋夕

银烛秋光冷画屏，轻罗小扇扑流萤。

天阶夜色凉如水，坐看牵牛织女星。