These seventy poems are masterpieces from over a thousand years of
classical Chinese poetry. Beauty and simplicity meld to convey an
astounding landscape with both enchanting details and breath-taking
vastness. The poems constitute an anthology, given to Chinese school
children as a text to aid their instruction in Mandarin, and to
introduce them to China's rich literary history. The poems are
considered representative of China's highest poetic achievements from
the Han Dynasty to the Qing. We have striven to mirror the emotional
state and the musical values of the originals. We chose to translate
line by line, and have eschewed jumbling lines within individual poems.