Tu Mu: Egrets

Snowy coats and snowy crests and beaks of blue jade

Flock above the fish in the brook and dart at their own shadows,

In startled flight show up far back against the green hills,

The blossoms of a whole pear-tree shed by the evening wind.

                                                (tr. A.C. Graham)

Robes of snow, crests of snow, and beaks of azure-jade,
they fish in shadowy streams. Then starting up into

flight, they leave emerald mountains for lit distances.
Pear blossoms, a tree-full, tumble in the evening wind.

                                                (tr. David Hinton)

Tu Mu (or Du Mu) wrote in the mid-9th century. The poetry in translations from classical Chinese is usually in an invisible dimension just outside the reader’s perception. Both these versions are too busy to bring across the impact of the pear blossom image, which is surely Tu Mu’s main point and one grasped a millennium later by Ezra Pound.