<Header>
<Author: 白居易>
<Title: 放旅雁>
<Format: 格式不明>
<Year: 1919>
<BookName: Translation from the Chinese>
<Translator: Arthur Waley>
<TranslatedTitle: Releasing a Migrant "Yen">
<BookPage: 198>
<UsedPage: 1>
<Feature: 4>
<End Header>
<Poem>
九江十年冬大雪，
江水生冰樹枝折。
百鳥無食東西飛，
中有旅鴈聲最飢。
雪中啄草冰上宿，
翅冷騰空飛動遲。
江童持網捕將去，
手攜入市生賣之。
我本北人今譴謫，
人鳥雖殊同是客。
見此客鳥傷客人，
贖汝放汝飛入雲。
鴈鴈汝飛向何處？第一莫飛西北去。
淮西有賊討未平，
百萬甲兵久屯聚。
官軍賊軍相守老，
食盡兵窮將及汝。
健兒飢餓射汝喫，
拔汝翅翎爲箭羽。
<End Poem>
<Translation>
At Nine Rivers, in the tenth year, in winter,—heavy snow;
The river-water covered with ice and the forests broken with their load.
The birds of the air, hungry and cold, went Aying east and west;
And with them few a migrant "yen" loudly clamouring for food.
Among the snow it pecked for grass; and rested on the surface of the ice:
It tried with its wings to scale the sky; but its tired flight was slow.
The boys of the river spread a net and caught the bird as it flew;
They took it in their hands to the city-market and sold it there alive.
I that was once a man of the North am now an exile here:
Bird and man, in their different kind, are each strangers in the south.
And because the sight of an exiled bird wounded an exile's heart,
I paid your ransom and set you free, and you flew away to the clouds.
Yen, Yen, fying to the clouds, tell me, whither shall you go?
Of all things I bid you, do not fly to the land of the north-west;
In Huai-hsi there are rebel bands that have not been subdued;
And a thousand thousand armoured men have long been camped in war.
The official army and the rebel army have grown old in their opposite trenches;
The soldier's rations have grown so small, they'll be glad of even you.
The brave boys, in their hungry plight, will shoot you and eat your flesh;
They will pluck from your body those long feathers and make them into arrow-wings!
<End Translation>