东栏梨花 The Blooming Pear Tree by East Fence

东栏梨花（和孔密州五绝之一）

原作: 苏轼（字子瞻, 号东坡居士; 11世纪北宋）

旧版英译:戈登.奥赛茵, 闵晓红, 黄海鹏(1990)

新版修改及赏析: 闵晓红(2023)

梨花淡白柳深青，

柳絮飞时花满城。

惆怅东栏一株雪，

人生看得几清明！

The Blooming Pear Tree by East Fence

-an echo poem to one of Kong Mizhou’s five poems

Chinese original by Su Shi (11th AC, social name 'Dongpo')

old En. trans. by G. Osing, J. Min & H. Huang (1990)

Revision+ annot. by Julia Min (2023)

Snow white are the blossoming pears,

And liquid are the willows’ dark green.

The catkins are floating like snowing;

The town’s glowing with vibrant spring.

At the east fence I find a lonely man,

By a lonely tree like pure snow, sighing:

How few are such a view of Qingming!

How few can really see life’s meaning!

Appreciation:

Appreciation

Su Shi wrote this seven-character quatrain in 1077 at the age of 41 while serving in Xuzhou. The piece is a quiet masterclass in balance, shifting naturally from the crisp clarity of a spring landscape into a sudden, vulnerable confession of human transience.

There is a striking kinship here with A.E. Housman’s "Loveliest of Trees." Both poets look upon the breathtaking white of spring blossoms only to feel the sharp winter ahead, finding in nature's renewal a quiet reminder of our own brief seasons.

For the Chinese reader, this landscape carries a familiar, unspoken weight. Pear blossoms and drifting willow catkins are ancient shorthand for parting and the solitary spaces left behind. Because these petals fall during the Qingming Festival—a day traditionally reserved for remembering those who have gone before us—the view from the east fence becomes something much larger than a passing observation. It lingers as a melancholic sigh over how few springs we are given to truly see the world, and ourselves, clearly.

Reference:

1. Blooming Alone in Winter by Gordon Osing, Julia Min, and Huang Haipeng, published by the People's Publication House Henan Province in 1990 (《寒心未肯随春态》戈登.奥赛茵，闵晓红，黄海鹏) (“The Blossoming Pear by the East Fence” – “ Snow-white the blossoming pears and liquid the willow’s green./the catkins are snowing; the town glows with spring./I find myself, sadly, at the east fence by the one snowy tree/ That teaches how few in a lifetime Qing Mings there’ll be.”

2. “Loveliest of Trees” by A.E. Housman (1859 –1936): “Loveliest of trees, the cherry now/Is hung with bloom along the bough,/And stands about the woodland ride/Wearing white for Eastertide.//Now, of my threescore years and ten,/Twenty will not come again,/And take from seventy springs a score,/It only leaves me fifty more.//And since to look at things in bloom/Fifty springs are little room,/About the woodlands I will go/To see the cherry hung with snow.”

2. picture from Google