Once On Board with Li Bai

朝發白帝城          
朝辭白帝彩雲間          
千里江陵一日還          
兩岸猿聲啼不住          
輕舟已過萬重山          
Zao Fa Baidi Cheng          
chao ci Baidi cai yun jian          
qian li Jiangling yi ri huan          
liang an yuan sheng ti bu zhu          
qing zhou yi guo wan chong shan          
         
           
Bade farewell to my little shy rose bud          
sailing with my drifting heart          
my dream boat, the skiff swerves          
into the three gorges of Yangtze River          
in the territory of Baidi City          
I met LI Bai, the God of Poetry          
           
He was born an upper-class dandy          
goofing around was his hobby          
once he skipped his study          
and learned street smarts            
about persistence from an old lady          
the story he passed down            
tells us how a thick iron pestle            
can be ground into a tiny needle          
           
Where I saw him a drunken poet          
as well as a depressed politician          
owing to the false accusation          
mistaken by the fatuous emperor            
as a victim of a court intrigue          
suffering from his banishment          
then he got amnesty          
telling he had been set free          
           
At dawn we set off from Baidi           
the cloud surrounding towering city      
My skiff came downstream          
flying one thousand miles in a dream          
passing through ten thousand mountain ranges            
accompanied by the non-stop ape screams          
           
Being cheerful going home          
he couldn’t help but write a poem          
a seven-character quatrain          
with only 28 words          
It’s the grand finale          
the rarest commodity          
in Tong Dynasty          
even in Chinese poetry history