Night Mooring at Maple Bridge
楓橋夜泊
Fēng Qiáo Yè Bó
Zhang Ji’s Maple Bridge night mooring, with pinyin, English translation, and notes on troubled sleep, riverside lights, and a temple bell reaching the boat.
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Read the original and its translation together. Open a line’s word meanings for a closer look.
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
- 月 yuè moon
- 落 luò sets
- 烏 wū crows
- 啼 tí cry
- 霜 shuāng frost
- 滿 mǎn fills
- 天 tiān sky
Word meanings — Line 2
- 江 jiāng river
- 楓 fēng maples
- 漁火 yú huǒ fishing lights
- 對 duì face
- 愁 chóu troubled
- 眠 mián sleep
Word meanings — Line 3
- 姑蘇 gū sū Gusu (Suzhou)
- 城 chéng city
- 外 wài outside
- 寒山寺 hán shān sì Hanshan Temple
Word meanings — Line 4
- 夜半 yè bàn midnight
- 鐘聲 zhōng shēng bell sound
- 到 dào reaches
- 客船 kè chuán traveler’s boat
English translation by PoemWell.
Read the whole poem
Original
月落烏啼霜滿天，
江楓漁火對愁眠。
姑蘇城外寒山寺，
夜半鐘聲到客船。
Translation
The moon goes down; crows call; the whole sky feels frosty.
River maples and fishing lights face my troubled rest.
Beyond the walls of Gusu stands Cold Mountain Temple;
at midnight its bell reaches the traveler's boat.
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.
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Line 1 · What does the marked word mean?
月落烏啼霜滿天，
Pronunciation hint
tí
Reveal meaning and translation
啼 — cry
The moon goes down; crows call; the whole sky feels frosty.
-
Line 3 · What does the marked word mean?
姑蘇城外寒山寺，
Pronunciation hint
gū sū
Reveal meaning and translation
姑蘇 — Gusu (Suzhou)
Beyond the walls of Gusu stands Cold Mountain Temple;
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Line 4 · What does the marked word mean?
夜半鐘聲到客船。
Pronunciation hint
yè bàn
Reveal meaning and translation
夜半 — midnight
at midnight its bell reaches the traveler's boat.
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
A night built from several senses
月落 and 烏啼 give a setting moon and crying crows. 霜滿天 makes the cold feel pervasive; it is not a meteorological claim that frost is suspended throughout the sky. The English keeps the scene’s chill without requiring that physical explanation.
江楓 is read here as riverside maples and 漁火 as fishing lights. 對 places them opposite the traveler’s troubled rest. 愁眠 is not uncomplicated, peaceful sleep; a translation must leave the unease present even when English requires a fuller phrase.
The bell makes the final journey
姑蘇 is Gusu, the place-name associated with Suzhou, and 寒山寺 is Hanshan Temple. The temple’s name should not be dismantled into a claim that any cold mountain is ringing. The poem locates the temple outside the city before the last line carries its sound to the boat.
到, “reach,” is the decisive verb. The traveler is moored, yet something crosses the intervening space. 客船 finally identifies the receiving place as a traveler’s boat. Compare the close moon in Mooring on the Jiande River: both endings bring a distant element near without explicitly saying sorrow is cured.
The received line specifies midnight. Questions about historical bell schedules are separate from reading that line and cannot be settled from this four-line poem alone. Its author is 張繼, Zhang Ji, not the distinct poet 張籍.
Read the two kinds of light
The moon in 月落 is moving out of sight, while the fishing lights in 漁火 are still near enough to face the boat. By 夜半 the poem is locating the traveler through sound, with 到 doing the work that the lights and shore landmarks did earlier. Look at the last word 船. The far-off temple's bell matters to the poem because it reaches this particular listener in a particular place.
Form and tone
A seven-character quatrain, the poem moves from a crowded sensory opening to one sound traveling across darkness. The person appears indirectly in 愁眠 and 客船. Modern Mandarin pinyin does not reconstruct the poem's original sounds, and no historical tone grid is asserted.
Historical context
This is Zhang Ji, 張繼, not the later poet Zhang Ji written 張籍. A boat lodging places the speaker close to the city's lights and sounds while leaving him a traveler outside it. Compare the different scale of loneliness in Meng Haoran's Jiande River mooring.
Read this poem alongside the contrasting selections in our homesickness reading guide.
Sources
Chinese text follows the main readings of Quan Tang shi, juan 242, Zhang Ji (張繼). 却 is normalized to 卻 where it occurs. Punctuation is editorial. English translations and annotations are original to PoemWell.
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
Zhang Ji. “Night Mooring at Maple Bridge” (楓橋夜泊). PoemWell. English translation by PoemWell. Updated .
https://poemwell.org/poems/night-mooring-at-maple-bridge
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.