Huang Jingren: At the Year-End, Missing Friends 1

　　At the Year-End, Missing Friends
　　　　　　　　　　　Huang Jingren (1749-1783 Qing Dynasty)

　　In the 44th year of Qianlong Reign (1779), when Huang Jingren had been in Beijing as a low-rank official for a few years, he wrote a group of twenty poems. The first one should be read as an opening piece, which was not addressed to any particular one, while each of the rest was written for a specific friend or teacher.

　　No 1 (of 20)
Icy rain flogs the window, and wind snakes in,
Scissoring the flame heart of the lamp into unstable forks.
I try a deep voice on a new poem in the flickering fire from the earthen pan,
To see whether I myself can be moved.
At this hour, to what can I compare my loved friends?
Scattered stars in the morning, wild geese fading at dusk.

Note:
The allusion of 拥鼻吟 pinching the nostrils to recite a poem refers to a story in Jin Chronicles. There was a poet called Xie An谢安, whose recitation of poems was very touching. It turned out that he had an ailment of nose, and his voice was quite nasal. Therefore, many people tried to pinch their noses to imitate him. And Ouyang Xiu欧阳修 once wrote a line “one guest pinches his nose to recite the bitter coldness of the poem.” Therefore, the allusion used here is to suggest the emotional power of the poem.
拥鼻吟，说的是《晋书·列传第四十九·谢安》所记故事。谢安吟诵诗文效果非常好，因为他的鼻子有病，所以声音浑厚低沉。时人为了模仿他，故意捏着鼻子。欧阳修曾有诗句：有客拥鼻吟苦寒。因此，拥鼻吟只要意指诗歌的情感浓度。

Chinese Original 汉语原诗

　　岁暮怀人（二十之一）
　　　　　　　　　　　黄景仁
打窗冻雨剪灯风，拥鼻吟残地火红。
寥落故人谁得似，晓天星影暮天鸿。

　　岁year　暮dusk　怀miss　人man
　　　　　　　　　　　黄景仁
打beat　窗window　冻frozen　雨rain　剪scissor　灯lamp　风wind
拥hold　鼻nose　吟recite　残broken　地earth　火fire　红red
寥few　落fall　故acquainted　人man　谁who　得can　似similar
晓morning　天sky　星star　影shadow　暮dusk　天sky　鸿swan goose

Back-translation into Contemporary Chinese 现代汉语回译：

　　　年末，怀念友人

冰冷的雨抽打窗子，
风潜入屋里，油灯的火心被剪裂了，摇曳不定。
地炉的火苗或高或低，我试着用低沉的嗓音吟诵一首新诗，
看看我自己是否能被打动。
在这样的时辰，我能将我的好友们比作什么？
清晨寥落的星星，在黄昏暗淡的雁影。