Active first half of the 8th century
Zhang Xu
張旭
Explore Zhang Xu's short landscape poems through drifting petals, mountain mist, a traveler's moon, and the weather that changes an outing.
The four poems gathered here make landscape an encounter: someone asks a question, tries to keep a guest, reaches toward reflected moonlight, or postpones an outing. Reading those small actions first helps the scenery retain its particular purpose.
An entrance still unseen
In Peach Blossom Stream, a high bridge, mist, and drifting petals suggest a path toward a hidden place. The speaker asks a fishing boat where the entrance lies. The poem ends with that question. Its connection with the Peach Blossom Spring story opens an imaginative possibility, without claiming that the traveler has found the legendary community.
Notice how much of the scene is indirect: the bridge is indistinct, the petals come from elsewhere, and the person addressed may know a way the speaker does not. The nature shelf includes other poems in which an unseen presence shapes what can be observed.
Weather as persuasion
Keeping a Guest in the Mountains answers a practical objection. A slight clouding makes the visitor consider leaving; the speaker replies that clothes could become wet deep in the mountain clouds even on a clear day. The argument lets pleasure in the place carry the wish for continued company.
Spring Outing Caught in Rain responds differently. Here the outing can wait until tomorrow. The imagined help of the east wind turns disappointment into a plan.
A changed manner of seeing
Boating on Clear Stream begins with a tired traveler and changes with a smile. The moon’s light becomes something to welcome in abundance. Compare that turn with Li Bai’s drinking beneath the moon: the shared image does not require the same imagined company.
The texts are collected in Quan Tang shi, juan 117. The Wikisource author record notes uncertainty about Zhang Xu’s lifespan; this page therefore uses a broad period rather than asserting exact years.
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