Gathering Lotus
采蓮曲二首（其二）
Cǎi lián qǔ èr shǒu · qí èr
Green skirts disappear into lotus leaves until a song reveals the people in Wang Changling’s second lotus-gathering song.
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About the text and pronunciation
The simplified view changes character forms, not the edition. Notes and sources retain the cited text.
The Chinese source is shown in traditional characters by default, with a simplified view available. Pinyin is modern standard Mandarin, a reading aid, not Tang or Song pronunciation.
Word by word, in the order of the line. A gloss is a crib. It is not the translation.
Word meanings — Line 1
- 荷 hé lotus
- 葉 yè leaves
- 羅 luó silk
- 裙 qún skirts
- 一 yí one
- 色 sè color
- 裁 cái cut
Word meanings — Line 2
- 芙 fú lotus
- 蓉 róng lotus
- 向 xiàng toward
- 臉 liǎn faces
- 兩 liǎng two
- 邊 biān sides
- 開 kāi open
Word meanings — Line 3
- 亂 luàn mingling
- 入 rù enter
- 池 chí pond
- 中 zhōng within
- 看 kàn look
- 不 bú not
- 見 jiàn see
Word meanings — Line 4
- 聞 wén hear
- 歌 gē song
- 始 shǐ only then
- 覺 jué realize
- 有 yǒu there are
- 人 rén people
- 來 lái come
English translation by PoemWell.
Read the whole poem
Original
荷葉羅裙一色裁，
芙蓉向臉兩邊開。
亂入池中看不見，
聞歌始覺有人來。
Translation
Lotus leaves and silk skirts seem cut from a single green;
lotus flowers open beside the faces.
They mingle in the pond and vanish from sight,
until their singing lets us know they are there.
Try it from memory
After reading, recall the underlined word or phrase in each line. Say its meaning before opening the answer. These prompts use the text edition printed above.
-
Line 1 · What does the marked word mean?
荷葉羅裙一色裁，
Pronunciation hint
qún
Reveal meaning and translation
裙 — skirts
Lotus leaves and silk skirts seem cut from a single green;
-
Line 3 · What does the marked word mean?
亂入池中看不見，
Pronunciation hint
zhōng
Reveal meaning and translation
中 — within
They mingle in the pond and vanish from sight,
-
Line 4 · What does the marked word mean?
聞歌始覺有人來。
Pronunciation hint
jué
Reveal meaning and translation
覺 — realize
until their singing lets us know they are there.
One more question: what changes?
Compare the opening and closing lines. What changes in the scene, the speaker’s attention, or the feeling? Choose a Chinese word as evidence, then compare your reading with the notes. More than one answer may be reasonable.
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Line-by-line notes
Lines 1–2 · Clothing and flowers borrow from each other
荷葉 and 羅裙 put lotus leaves beside silk skirts. 一色裁 makes them seem cut from one color, borrowing a word for making clothes to describe both. 芙蓉 is lotus in this pond. Flowers open on either side of the gatherers’ faces, so a glimpse of a face belongs to the same view as the blossom.
Lines 3–4 · Hearing finds the people
亂入 lets the gatherers mingle with what the first pair has made them resemble. 看不見 describes the eye’s failure to pick them out. 聞歌 changes the evidence to sound, and 始覺 says the recognition happens only then. The English uses “until” to join that recognition to the moment of concealment. Try reading the last two lines without looking back at the first two. The song restores a human presence that the colors alone could no longer distinguish.
Form and tone
A seven-character jueju, this is the second complete poem under the lotus-song heading. 裁, 開, and 來 rhyme. The sensory turn is precise: 看不見 gives way to 聞 and 覺. Modern pinyin is supplied without a historical tone grid.
Historical context
Wang Changling makes people difficult to distinguish from nature, then lets their song announce them. Compare Deer Enclosure, where voices also precede visible people, and Spring Dawn, where hearing builds a scene that the eye never completely verifies.
Sources
《全唐詩》, juan 143, Wang Changling; checked against the Wikisource transcription, retaining the main reading and identifying the individual poem within its sequence. Punctuation is editorial.
English translation, gloss, and notes by PoemWell. The translation is original to this site.
The Chinese source is shown in traditional characters by default, with a simplified view available. Pinyin is modern standard Mandarin, a reading aid, not Tang or Song pronunciation.
Updated .
Cite this reading
Wang Changling. “Gathering Lotus” (采蓮曲二首（其二）). PoemWell. English translation by PoemWell. Updated .
https://poemwell.org/poems/gathering-lotus-wang-changling
Credit the poet for the Chinese original and PoemWell for this translation and commentary. Use the permanent page link above; source editions are listed separately.