Hanshan Temple outside Gusu City Source: "Night Mooring at Maple Bridge", author: Zhang Ji, dynasty: Tang.
Original text:
The moon is setting, the crows are crying, the sky is full of frost, the river maple is fishing and the fire is facing melancholy.
At Hanshan Temple outside Gusu City, the bell rang at midnight to reach the passenger ship.
Translation:
The moon has set, the crows are crows and the sky is filled with cold air. I sleep sadly in front of the maple trees and fishing fires by the river. In the lonely and quiet Hanshan Ancient Temple outside Gusu City, the sound of ringing bells in the middle of the night reached the passenger ship.
Creative background
According to the third volume of "The Biography of Talented Scholars of the Tang Dynasty", Zhang Ji passed the imperial examination "in the twelfth year of Tianbao (753) under Yang Jun, the minister of the Ministry of Rites", which means that he passed the examination Become a Jinshi. And in January of the fourteenth year of Tianbao (755), the Anshi Rebellion broke out. In June of the fifteenth year of Tianbao (756), Xuanzong rushed to Shu in a hurry. Because the political situation in Jiangnan was relatively stable at that time, many scribes fled to the present-day Jiangsu and Zhejiang areas to escape the chaos, including Zhang Ji.
One autumn night, the poet was boating on the Maple Bridge outside Suzhou. The beautiful scenery of the autumn night in the Jiangnan water town attracted this guest with travel worries, allowing him to appreciate a kind of poetic beauty with lasting appeal, and he wrote this short poem with a clear and far-reaching artistic conception.
The second volume of "Zhongxing Jianqi Collection" compiled by Gaozhong Wu of the Tang Dynasty contains this poem by Zhang Ji, titled "Moving in the Fengjiang River at Night". This poem was included in "Wenyuan Yinghua" compiled by Li Fang and others of the Song Dynasty, and the poem was titled "Mooring at Night on Maple Bridge".