The Snow Poem and the Author's Story

This is a traditional Chinese poem written by the famous Chinese poet “郁达夫” on February 12th, 1919, while living in Japan.


郁达夫

一九一九年二月十二日 日本

一夜朔风吹布被,天花散处不生根。
埋来地角衣无缝,衬出春心草有痕。
浙水潮头豪士马,罗浮枝上美人魂。
缘何得向山中卧,严冷须知造化恩。 

It’s a poem about snow, and I am going to translate it into English now.

In the poem, there was heavy wind and heavy snow all night.

The snow was following as flowers from the sky.

In the morning, the snow was covering the ground, but the path of the grass showed that it was waiting for spring.

There was a good life in my hometown, where I rode a big horse with beautiful girls.

But why am I living in the mountains right now?

The cold weather shows the power of nature.

That's the poem content, and there is a short introduction about the author's life.​

At that moment, the author of the poem was living in Japan as a foreign student.

He was born in the ZheJiang province of China with a rich life, but he moved to Japan at 19 years old as a foreign student.

In 1919, China was still a poor and powerless country, so he had a hard life in Japan.

He met a pretty Chinese girl and fell in love with her.

But they broke up because the girl's parents wanted to join Japan's nationality, and she had to marry Japanese.

His heart was hurt, and he then moved back to China, where he became a famous writer.

He wrote a lot of poems, novels, and prose; his most famous article is The Autumn of the Ancient Capital.

After he got married and then his daughter who was named after that Chinese girl who was met in Japan.

That's a sadly love story.

In 1938, his mother and brother died in the Japanese invasion of China.

And then he was sadly killed by the Japanese army in 1945.

He is a poet, hero, and martyr of China.