Poem Without A Title by Li Shangyin

無 題 李商隱

Poem Without A Title by Li Shangyin

相見時難別亦難，東風無力百花殘。 

It is difficult for us to meet and hard to part,

The east wind is too weak to revive flowers dead.

春蠶到死絲方盡，臘炬成灰淚始幹。 

The silkworm till its death spins from love-sick heart;

The candle only when burned has no tears to shed.

曉鏡但愁雲鬢改，夜吟應覺月光寒。 

At dawn she'd be afraid to see mirrored hair gray;

At night she would feel cold while I croon by moonlight.

蓬萊此去無多路，青鳥殷勤為探看。

To the three fairy hills it is not a long way,

Would the blue-bird oft fly to see her on their height? 

(Tr. X.Y. Z.) 

Super excited to share one of my favourite poems with everyone! Chinese poems are a constant source of inspiration to me in my writing, so maybe they'll inspire someone else too.

Some quick context notes:

• It's difficult for a pair of lovers to meet and even more difficult for them to part-- this is compared to the way how flowers must wither in the last days of spring in the eastern wind. 
• The word for 'silk' （丝）sounds like the word for 'to think of' (思).
• The 'fairy hills' mentioned are Penglai, a mythical mountain on the sea where immortals (仙）are. The line is saying that while the location of author's lover is within sight, his lover is out of grasp. 
• The blue-bird is the messenger Queen Mother of the West. The author wishes that there was a messenger like the blue-bird who could visit his lover and take messages. 

I love the way that so much meaning, emotion and nuance can be conveyed in so few words-- less is truly more with these poems. 

Sources: 

300 Tang Poems: A New Translation (唐詩三百首新譯). Edited by Xu Yuan-zhong, Loh Bei-yei, and Wu Juntao. 

Websites (Chinese): 1, 2