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The Moon

月

Chinese moon poems about home, company, travel, and separation, with close comparisons of Li Bai, Wang Wei, Meng Haoran, Su Shi, and Li Qingzhao.

The moon in these poems changes with the person looking at it. A remembered home, an absent friend, a brother, and an imagined letter give the same light different occasions. Begin with the action around the moon rather than assigning it one definition.

Distance

Quiet Night Thought, by Li Bai, looks at moonlight, mistakes it for frost, looks up at the mountain moon, and looks down into homesickness. The moon is not addressed. It is the thing in the sky that makes the hometown feel far. The poem is four lines. It does not explain the man, the town, or the night. The homesickness page is the shelf for that feeling when you want it named.

Company

Drinking Alone beneath the Moon, also Li Bai, will not stay lonely in a technical sense. He invites the moon, counts his shadow, and has three people at the drink. Then he admits the moon cannot drink and the shadow can only follow. The company is a performance he sees through and keeps. The wine is the occasion, which is why the poem is also on the wine page. The legend of his death in the water, grasping at a reflection, is not this poem’s ending. The poem already names a later meeting, in the River of Stars.

Coming close

In Bamboo Grove, Wang Wei plays a qin and makes a long call where other people do not know him. The moon “comes” to shine upon him. There is no toast and no counting of companions: one verb gives the light the shape of a visit.

Meng Haoran’s Mooring on the Jiande River instead ends with the moon “near” a traveler. The clear water makes a reflected nearness a natural reading, although the poem does not write the word “reflection.” Compare 來, coming, with 近, near. A small difference in action changes the apparent relationship between person and moon.

A calendar

Shui Diao Ge Tou, by Su Shi, is a Song lyric for mid-autumn, the night the moon is supposed to be full. He asks how long the moon has existed, thinks of going up to it, decides the height is too cold, and then asks why it is always full when people are apart. The last wish is that people last, and that the same moon can be shared a thousand miles apart. His brother is in the preface. The moon here is time, weather, and a way two people can still be in one picture.

Waiting for a letter

Before leaving the Song lyrics, compare Li Qingzhao’s Yi Jian Mei. The speaker wonders who will send a letter, imagines the return of geese, and places moonlight in a western upper room: 月滿西樓. Our translation reads 滿 as light filling the room, rather than as proof of a full moon on a named festival night.

That distinction separates this scene from Su Shi’s explicit mid-autumn occasion. The love and longing lyric names one longing across two places, but supplies no personal name or date. The moon belongs to the waiting; it does not supply the missing biography.

Keep the light particular

Deer Enclosure is late sunlight, 返景, not moonlight. It stays on the nature shelf. A Tang poem with a moon in it is not automatically about exile, the emperor, or Buddhism. When one of those is actually in play, the poem page should be able to show the line. The reading guide’s warning about four-line poems applies here with extra force, because the moon is exactly the image people overload.

Li Bai’s two moon poems are Tang. Su Shi’s and Li Qingzhao’s lyrics are Song, and both follow named ci patterns. Those forms shape how long a question, an imagined journey, or a wish can continue.

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Poems in this hub

Li Bai Quiet Night Thought 靜夜思 Li Bai’s four-line night poem, with the traditional text, Mandarin pinyin, a word-by-word gloss, and an English translation written for PoemWell. Li Bai Drinking Alone beneath the Moon 月下獨酌 The first of Li Bai’s four poems called Drinking Alone beneath the Moon: wine, a shadow, and the moon as a third companion, with gloss and an original translation. Su Shi Shui Diao Ge Tou 水調歌頭 Su Shi’s mid-autumn lyric to the tune Shui Diao Ge Tou, written in 1076 with his brother in mind: text, pinyin, gloss, and an original English translation. Li Qingzhao Yi Jian Mei: A Longing in Two Places 一剪梅·紅藕香殘玉簟秋 Li Qingzhao’s lyric of separation, from fading lotus scent to a feeling that will not leave: Chinese, pinyin, gloss, original translation, and notes. Wang Wei Bamboo Grove 竹里館 A qin, a long call, and moonlight enter Wang Wei’s solitary bamboo grove. Read the Chinese with pinyin, character glosses, original translation, and notes. Meng Haoran Mooring on the Jiande River 宿建德江 Meng Haoran’s Jiande River quatrain in Chinese and English, with pinyin and notes on a traveler’s sorrow, the low sky, and a moon that seems close. Bai Juyi Song of the River at Dusk 暮江吟 Sunset divides the river into colors; night brings a crescent moon and pearl-like dew. Read the original Chinese with pinyin, word meanings, an original English translation, and notes. Liu Yuxi Looking at Lake Dongting 望洞庭 Moonlight smooths Lake Dongting into a vast mirror. Read the changing scale as distant landscape becomes a green shell resting on a silver plate. Li Bai Song of the Moon over Mount Emei 峨眉山月歌 Moonlight and place-names accompany a journey downstream from the Emei region. Read the Chinese, pinyin, word meanings, and original English translation. Liu Yuxi Stone City 石頭城 Tides and moonlight revisit a ruined capital. Watch the landscape continue its familiar movements while the city's former power remains absent. Meng Haoran A Night on the Tonglu River, Sent to Old Friends 宿桐廬江寄廣陵舊遊 River sounds surround a solitary boat while the traveler sends his thoughts toward old companions in Guangling. Read the Chinese, pinyin, word meanings, and original English translation. Zhang Xu Boating on Clear Stream 清谿泛舟 A weary traveler reaches toward moonlight on a stream in Zhang Xu’s brief poem of an unexpectedly abundant evening. Du Mu Mooring on the Qinhuai 泊秦淮 A night mooring near a wine house brings an old court song across the water. Hear how present pleasure becomes entangled with a fallen dynasty. Du Fu Remembering My Brothers on a Moonlit Night 月夜憶舍弟 A military night closes the roads while the speaker has no reliable news of his scattered brothers. Read the Chinese, pinyin, word meanings, and original English translation. Wang Wan Answering Director He’s Moonlit Drinking Poem 奉和賀監林月清酌 Moonlight enters a freshly cleared grove and breaks into reflections at a literary gathering in Wang Wan’s responsive poem. Wang Changling Farewell at Hibiscus Tower: The River at Night 芙蓉樓送辛漸二首（其二） Clouds surround Danyang, and wine cannot dissolve a farewell in the second of Wang Changling’s Hibiscus Tower quatrains. Wang Changling Beyond the Frontier: The Old Pass 出塞二首（其一） Qin moonlight and a Han pass compress centuries of unfinished return in Wang Changling’s frontier quatrain. Du Fu Thoughts on a Traveling Night 旅夜書懷 A tall mast under immense stars gives way to the image of a single gull between heaven and earth. Read the Chinese, pinyin, word meanings, and original English translation. Wang Changling Beyond the Frontier: After the Battle 出塞二首（其二） A newly mounted horse, continuing drums, and an unwashed blade hold Wang Changling’s frontier scene just after combat. Li Shangyin Chang’e 嫦娥 A candle fades as the morning stars recede. Read how an earthbound sleepless night opens into the imagined solitude of Chang'e in the moon. Wang Changling Army Song: The Watchtower at Dusk 從軍行七首（其一） A dusk climb and a familiar flute tune connect a frontier watchtower to a distant woman's chamber in Wang Changling’s first army song. Li Shangyin Frost and Moon 霜月 An autumn night becomes a contest between frost and moonlight. Follow the poem's transformation of cold brightness into a meeting of celestial women. Wang Changling Army Song: New Music, Old Parting 從軍行七首（其二） New pipa music cannot exhaust an old feeling of separation, and Wang Changling ends the song beneath a high autumn moon. Wen Tingyun Lament of the Jade Zither 瑤瑟怨 A luxurious bed offers no rest beneath a clear night sky. Follow the movement from indoor cold to passing geese and moonlight beyond the sleepless room.