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Xiǎo ChíThe Little Pond 小池
Yang Wanli's dragonfly on the first lotus bud.
Original Chinese text with pinyin
泉眼无声惜细流
quán yǎn wú shēng xī xì liú
树阴照水爱晴柔
shù yīn zhào shuǐ ài qíng róu
小荷才露尖尖角
xiǎo hé cái lù jiān jiān jiǎo
早有蜻蜓立上头
zǎo yǒu qīng tíng lì shàng tóu
Simplified characters; traditional title: 小池.
English translation
The spring mouth is silent, sparing its thin trickle;
Tree shade loves the soft clear water.
A little lotus tip has just shown its point—
Already a dragonfly stands upon it.
Original translation by Poetune — literal but poetic, written for this site.
Line by line
Meaning and imagery
The poem gives feelings to everything: the spring "spares" its flow, the trees "love" the sunshine. The last couplet is a perfectly timed snapshot — the lotus leaf has barely appeared when a dragonfly lands. It celebrates beginnings and the attention needed to notice them.
Background
A typical example of Yang Wanli's "Chengzhai style," which caught tiny, fresh moments of nature.
Key words
- 泉眼 quán yǎn
- the mouth of a spring
- 小荷 xiǎo hé
- a young lotus leaf
- 尖尖角 jiān jiān jiǎo
- a sharp little tip
About the poet: Yang Wanli
Yang Wanli developed a fresh, witty style that captured small moments of nature as if seen for the first time. He wrote over four thousand surviving poems.
Lifetime: 1127–1206. Other famous works: The Little Pond (小池).