"Ode to the Plum Blossoms" Wang Anshi of the Song Dynasty: It's strange that the plum blossoms don't want to bloom, how could they expect to wait for the coming of spring? In front of the lamp, the jade face is covered with fragrance, and after the snow, the spring appearance is triumphant. The clear poems are touched and turned into strokes, and the red sleeves dripping with fun pass the cup. The ordinary eyes of the world know this, and only buy young peaches and beautiful apricots.
Translation: In a quiet corner, there are a few plum blossoms, braving the severe cold, blooming alone. Looking from a distance, I knew that the white patch was not snowflakes, because waves of fragrance hit my nostrils.
Wang Anshi (December 18, 1021 - May 21, 1086), named Jiefu, Banshan, posthumous title, named Duke of Jing. The world also calls him King Jinggong. Han nationality, a native of Linchuan, Fuzhou in the Northern Song Dynasty (now a native of Dengjia Lane, Linchuan District, Fuzhou City, Jiangxi Province), a famous politician, thinker, writer, and reformer in the Northern Song Dynasty, and one of the Eight Great Masters of the Tang and Song Dynasties.
Appreciation:
This little poem has profound meaning, and the sentences are very simple and natural, without any trace of elaboration. Among the ancient poems about plum blossoms, one is quite famous, that is "Little Plum Blossoms in the Mountain Garden" written by Lin Bu, a poet of the Northern Song Dynasty who preceded the author.
Especially the two lines in the poem, "The sparse shadows are slanting across the clear water, and the faint fragrance is floating in the moonlight at dusk", which has been praised as the swan song of praising plum blossoms.
Lin Bu never held an official position in his life, nor did he marry or have children. He lived alone on the slopes of Gushan Mountain by the West Lake, planting plums and raising cranes, and lived a secluded life. Therefore, his poems about plum blossoms only express his self-righteous thoughts that are divorced from social reality.
The author's poem is different. He cleverly borrowed Lin Bu's poems, but he was able to innovate. Look at the plum blossoms he wrote, as white as snow, growing in the corner but not inferior, exuding fragrance from afar.