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Li Bai
Li Bai was one of the celebrated poets in Tang Dynasty, China. His poems have been preserved over nine hundred and ninety, most of which were produced in the rise and fall period of Tang Dynasty. Li Bai led a wandering life all his life so he wanted to make use of official career to realize his ideal of managing state affairs and making the world in peace. His talents were much appreciated by Emperor Xuanzong of the Tang Dynasty, so he was appointed as the chancellor of the Hanlin Academy. However, he was slandered by the flunky and later demoted and exiled for many times. He had talent but no opportunity to use it and was very disappointed and resentful in his heart so he had to attain fun only by drinking wine and writing poems.
Li Bai was good at writing various themes of poems, some of which repose feeling in the scene and some of which repose reality in the illusion, and also good at drawing nutrition and material from folk songs and fables. He inherited the writing style of Qu Yuan's Romanticism, who was a bright pearl in the history of Chinese poesy and had a great influence on the later generations. The landscape poems written by Li Bai are clear and natural in words with a profound message. Leaving Bai Di City in the Morning created in his late years was his representative work among the landscape poems. The poet was drunk down to thoroughly express his suffering and bewilderment that he has talent but no opportunity to use it. In his poems, the scenes of sighing toward the moon always appear such as drinking alone below the moon or watching the moon for missing the hometown or fill wine for asking the moon. . Night Thoughts is one of the well-known poems written by Li Bai. This short poem has few words and concise in wordage, but it is endowed with the passion that stimulates the bottom of one's heart and is thought-provoking and meaningful. Li Bai is uncommon in appearance and brilliant and unruly in act, so he is endowed with the title of Poet God.
Li Bai made friend with the other great poet of Du Fu in the history of Tang Poetry who is called as Poet Saint. Similar political ambitions and consciousness toward the reality have enabled them to be in the same camp. They all had produced masterpieces that had a great impact on the age and are left with a good name forever. They were called as "Li Du" who had accomplished the two peaks of poetical art in flourishing Tang Dynasty.
Leaving Bai Di City in the Morning
Leaving at dawn Baidi in the colorful clouds.
I’ve sailed a thousand li through canyons in a day.
With monkeys' sad adieus the riverbanks are loud：
My skiff has left ten thousand mountains far away．
zǎo fā bái dì chéng
早 发 白 帝 城
cháo cí bái dì cǎi yún jiān ，
朝 辞 白 帝 彩 云 间 ，
qiān lǐ jiāng líng yī rì hái 。
千 里 江 陵 一 日 还 。
liǎng àn yuán shēng tí bú zhù ，
两 岸 猿 声 啼 不 住 ，
qīng zhōu yǐ guò wàn chóng shān 。
轻 舟 已 过 万 重 山 。
Night Thoughts
In front of my bed the moonlight is very bright.
I wonder if that can be frost on the floor?
I list up my head and look at the full noon, the dazzling moon.
I drop my head, and think of the home of old days.
(Translated by Tr. Amy Lowell)
jìng yè sī
静 夜 思
chuáng qián míng yuè guāng ，yí shì dì shàng shuāng 。
床 前 明 月 光 ， 疑 是 地 上 霜 。
jǔ tóu wàng míng yuè ， dī tóu sī gù xiāng 。
举 头 望 明 月 ， 低 头 思 故 乡 。
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