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临江仙· 夜登小阁忆洛中旧游

陈与义

忆昔午桥桥上饮，坐中多是豪英。

长沟流月去无声。杏花疏影里，吹笛到天明。

二十余年如一梦，此身虽在堪惊。

闲登小阁看新晴。古今多少事，渔唱起三更。

Remembrance of Days in Luoyang

TO THE TUNE “LIN JIANG XIAN: RIVERSIDE IMMORTALS”

Chen Yuyi

I still remember drinking on the Bridge of Noon

with the best minds of my generation.

The reflection of moon lay quietly in the ditch,

and the flowing water could not move it.

In the sparse shade of apricot blossoms,

someone was playing the flute until the dawn hour.

Twenty years went by like a dream.

To think that I am still alive gives me cold sweats.

The sky clears at the pavilion. How many

palaces rise and fall in history? Those skeletons

of heroes that come alive at midnight

as faint melodies on the fisherman’s chapped lips.

陈与义 Chen Yuyi (1090–1138) was a poet-politician during the transitional period between the Northern and Southern Song. An official in the central government, he excelled in shi poetry, contributing some of the finest works of the Song era, but only dabbled in the ci poetry form.

方商羊 Shangyang Fang grew up in Chengdu, China. He is the author of Burying the Mountain (Copper Canyon Press, 2021) and Study of Sorrow: Translations (Copper Canyon Press, 2025).

Note: Hey poets! We seek submissions of excellent poetry from across the length and breadth of contemporary poetics. See submission guidelines here. The arbiter of the feature is the magazine’s poetry editor, John Mulrooney.

— Arts Fuse editor Bill Marx