Chinese Poems

The initiative of this little book was accidental. One day in the early part of last summer, feeling weary of translating commercial documents, I opened a volume of Chinese poetry that was lying on my desk and listlessly turned over the pages. As I was doing so my eye caught sight of the phrase, 'Red rain of peach flowers fell.' That would be refreshing, I said to myself, on such a day as this; and then I went on with my work again. But in the evening I returned to the book of Chinese poetry and made a free translation of the poem in which I had seen the metaphor quoted above. The translation seemed to me and some friends pleasantly readable; so in leisure hours I have translated some more poems and ballads, and these I now venture to publish in this volume, thinking that they may interest readers in other lands, and also call forth criticism that will be useful in preparing a larger volume which I, or some better qualified scholar, may publish hereafter; for it can hardly be said that the field of Chinese poetry has been widely explored by foreign students of the Chinese language.

Many of the translations in this book are nearly literal, excepting adaptations to meet the exigencies of rhyme and rhythm; but some are expanded to enable readers to understand what is implied, as well as actually written, in the original; for, after all, the chief aim of the translator of poetry should be to create around the mind of the reader the sensory atmosphere in which the mind of the poet moved when he wrote the poem. Whether I have attained a measure of success in such a very difficult task must be decided by the readers of these translations.