Children Playing With Ice
稚 子 弄 冰
稚 予 金 盘 腴 晓 冰
彩 丝 穿 取 当 银 证。
敲 成 玉 磬 穿 林 响
忽 作 玻 璃 碎 地 声。
Zhi Zi Nong Bing
Zhi yu jin pan yu xiao bing
Cai si chuan qu dang yin zheng.
Qiao cheng yu qing chuan lin xiang
Hu zuo bo li sui di sheng.
Children Playing With Ice
Small children use early morning blocks of ice as play toys
Strings of colored silk embedded into hardening ice can be strummed like a zheng.
Plucking sounds like a jade qing echo and penetrate the forest
Suddenly the sounds like shattering pieces of glass.
Notes:
Zheng: A bell-shaped percussion instrument, with a handle, used by army troops on the march.
Qing: A percussion instrument made of jade or stone and shaped like a carpenter’s square.