[Poem] Heaven in Peace / 天空一起
A/N: Whoever can note the pun in the Chinese title gets a cookie!
English
Wherever the wind blows,
Just wait for that voice to call.
Wherever the eagle flies,
Just wait for that day to come.
Through the desert you walk and crawl
How far can you reach for the sun?
Sea breeze of the golden sand,
In this land you will once again return.
Thousand miles the soldiers have walked
Battle cries whispered to the clouds
What more reasons do you need
For your crusade to not be of naught?
Toast to the fallen empire
As peonies blossomed by blood,
Destined once again to meet
To wherever the eagle has flown,
To wherever the wind has blown.
Chinese
無論風吹
只等那聲叫
無論鷹飛
只等那天來
通漠走爬
能達到太陽
黃沙海風
這土要回來
萬里丘走過
戰呼雲聽
要多少理由
為征戰行
祝酒下降帝國
牡丹血開花
再次注定相遇
往無論鷹飛
往無論風吹
The only reason I'm writing a poem right now is because I need to start on writing them for Momentum, and as the new section editor for the EngLit, I have to be more strict with myself now. And it's sort of a help in shaping me up. Anyway, I digress.
This poem was first written in English. Prompted when iTunes suddenly played outside my BuckTick area and into the C-Pop. The song played was 風雲決. The first line is actually a reference to the first line of that song. As usual, one thing led to another and soon, I dug an old grave and grabbed Jolin Tsai's Chinese version of A.R. Rahman's Warrior in Peace. Heard of this back in second year high school, and tried to have a copy of it but failed, and so I never listened to it until now. Oddly enough, this is the only Jolin Tsai song I know. Weird, huh. Anyway, the whole soldiers in desert image is a reference from the song's music video. Setting is during the Warring States, and the line with peonies blossomed by blood symbolizes victory won with bloodshed. As you all know, the Warring States--actually, any war period of ancient China can be quite bloody.
As for the Chinese version, one thing that irked me was the removal of pronouns and some prepositions. I had to, sadly, due to keeping with the format I had in mind. I had to switch to a 6-5-6-5 when I reached the last stanza. I struggled a bit with that particular stanza, since I really wanted to keep to the 4-5-4-5, but alas. I'm not a professional or real practitioner of Chinese poetry, so I had to cheat a bit here. In the end, I had to reason with myself that hey, your last stanza had 5 lines instead of 4. It's okay, right?
...I hope so. :'\
And on a side note... my repressed obsession with Chinese themes is finally pouring out of its dam. lol
English
Wherever the wind blows,
Just wait for that voice to call.
Wherever the eagle flies,
Just wait for that day to come.
Through the desert you walk and crawl
How far can you reach for the sun?
Sea breeze of the golden sand,
In this land you will once again return.
Thousand miles the soldiers have walked
Battle cries whispered to the clouds
What more reasons do you need
For your crusade to not be of naught?
Toast to the fallen empire
As peonies blossomed by blood,
Destined once again to meet
To wherever the eagle has flown,
To wherever the wind has blown.
Chinese
無論風吹
只等那聲叫
無論鷹飛
只等那天來
通漠走爬
能達到太陽
黃沙海風
這土要回來
萬里丘走過
戰呼雲聽
要多少理由
為征戰行
祝酒下降帝國
牡丹血開花
再次注定相遇
往無論鷹飛
往無論風吹
The only reason I'm writing a poem right now is because I need to start on writing them for Momentum, and as the new section editor for the EngLit, I have to be more strict with myself now. And it's sort of a help in shaping me up. Anyway, I digress.
This poem was first written in English. Prompted when iTunes suddenly played outside my BuckTick area and into the C-Pop. The song played was 風雲決. The first line is actually a reference to the first line of that song. As usual, one thing led to another and soon, I dug an old grave and grabbed Jolin Tsai's Chinese version of A.R. Rahman's Warrior in Peace. Heard of this back in second year high school, and tried to have a copy of it but failed, and so I never listened to it until now. Oddly enough, this is the only Jolin Tsai song I know. Weird, huh. Anyway, the whole soldiers in desert image is a reference from the song's music video. Setting is during the Warring States, and the line with peonies blossomed by blood symbolizes victory won with bloodshed. As you all know, the Warring States--actually, any war period of ancient China can be quite bloody.
As for the Chinese version, one thing that irked me was the removal of pronouns and some prepositions. I had to, sadly, due to keeping with the format I had in mind. I had to switch to a 6-5-6-5 when I reached the last stanza. I struggled a bit with that particular stanza, since I really wanted to keep to the 4-5-4-5, but alas. I'm not a professional or real practitioner of Chinese poetry, so I had to cheat a bit here. In the end, I had to reason with myself that hey, your last stanza had 5 lines instead of 4. It's okay, right?
...I hope so. :'\
And on a side note... my repressed obsession with Chinese themes is finally pouring out of its dam. lol