一丛花·初春病起 My Sick Recovery to Early Spring

一丛花·初春病起

 苏轼

今年春浅腊侵年，冰雪破春妍。

东风有信无人见，露微意、柳际花边。

寒夜纵长，孤衾易暖，钟鼓渐清圆。

朝来初日半衔山，楼阁淡疏烟。

游人便作寻芳计，小桃杏、应已争先。

衰病少悰，疏慵自放，惟爱日高眠。

My Sick Recovery to Early Spring

--to the tune of “A Patch of Flowers”

Chinese original: Su Shi

English version: Julia Min (Nov. 2024)

This spring comes early to a land of snow,

Hardly in view but east wind starts to blow.

She gives subtle signs with pussy willows,

And gentler grace on the drums and bells.

My bed keeps me warm with just one quilt,

Though the night still feels long and cold.

While the town is dreaming in misty air,

A new sun rises, biting the tip of the hill.

Peach and apricot buds will swell to sprout.

The juice for spring outings will roll bubbles.

There’ll be nothing for me—so weak and old.

I’ll keep the bed from running away at home.

photo by Cathy Hampton

For Appreciation:

This poem offers a unique perspective on spring from a forty-year-old man recovering in his sickbed. The year is 1076, and Su Shi serves as governor of Mizhou (today's Zhucheng, Shandong). A cheerful vibe dances in the air—a new sun rises, bringing hope for himself after long illness, and for townspeople embracing traditional spring outings after a long, cold winter.

Stanza one moves from the vast to the intimate, from winter to the whisper of spring. "Hardly in view but east wind starts to blow"—the east wind, traditional herald of spring in Chinese literature, arrives before any visible proof. Spring here acts like a fantasy, a quiet magic working on the land. She gives "subtle signs with pussy willows," those soft, furred buds that appear almost from nowhere, and casts "gentler grace on the drums and bells"—as if even sound itself is softening. Then the turn inward: "My bed keeps me warm with just one quilt, / Though the night still feels long and cold." The word "still" is not a hinge but a deepener. It adds a layer of duration, of endurance, of winter's refusal to leave.

Stanza two opens outward again—town dreaming, new sun rising, the ‘biting the tip of the hill’, the swelling buds, the rolling bubbles of young hearts. Then the dash. The pause. The quiet turn inward: "There'll be nothing for me—so weak and old." Su Shi was forty—hardly old. But illness ages a person overnight. This is not a complaint. It is an honest whisper to oneself, spoken after a long pause. And yet the poem does not become sad. Because the bed is still warm. The sun still rises.

Su Shi's laughter runs through everything—even exile, even sickness. The bed running away is an English humour, idiomatic and tender—alone in the morning, watching the sun climb while he chooses to stay. That choice is the poem. To find the warm spot and lie down in it, fully, without apology.

The English version stands on its own, not a translation but a recreation, as if Su Shi breathes through me, bringing it to life for contemporary readers. He’ll like it, do you agree?

Reference:

1. baike.baidu.com