Wang Wei's Wang River estate poems

Wang River Collection no. 16

Lakeside North Mound 
Wang Wei

A riot of trees contrast with crimson railings, 
At northern end: the mound of Lakeside North. 
While in and out of green woods, winking, trailing, 
The South Stream wends around its snakelike course.

王维  北垞 
北垞湖水北，杂树映朱阑。 
逶迤南川水，明灭青林端。 

---

Wang Wei appears to be just at play in this poem. I think he likes the way the words “water” and “north” rhyme in Chinese - they each appear twice, making up 20% of this short poem. He throws in “south,” and a word for river that rhymes with south, as well. (These rhymes don’t work in English, so I tried to represent the emphasis on soundplay with the heavy echoes in lines two and four.) In the remaining 14 characters of the poem, he still manages to construct a lovely paired image of a red railing against green trees, and a shining rivulet running through shady woods: a visual rhyme to equal his joyful sound rhymes. He makes no explicit mention of any emotional state, but this is one of the happiest poems I know.

Ignore the paragraph above, I was being silly! (see helpful comment from Charles below)

Pei Di's poem at the same site (prose translation):

The South Hill lies below Northern Mound/ we stand in the boathouse and look at Lake Qi./ Every time we want to collect firewood/ our boat sets out through pondweed and sweet flag.