Welcome to Poetry.com!

Poetry.com is a collaborative platform for poets worldwide, offering a vast collection of works by both renowned and emerging poets. It's a community-driven project that serves as a hub for poets to share their works, receive feedback, and connect with like-minded fellow poets.

Explore our poetry collection by navigating through subjects, using alphabetical order, or search by keywords. You can contribute a new poem, share your thoughts and rating on existing works, listen to poems with voice pronunciation, and even translate pieces into a variety of languages, both common and uncommon.

Rate this poem:5.0 / 3 votes
The Beginning of Winter
By William He

The feuilles mortes like strings of broken lyres,
Rent or furled are all late autumn ensigns there.
Now begin the famines of thought and emotion,
Some people with frozen pulses and fire hearts.
To move the faint soul with grief but with delight,
There is moment of an azure hue in plodding life.
How the spirit and flesh make day break at night,
As if that wistful part blown about in fitful winds.

七律 立冬
作者:何威廉

叶点霜氛刚半晚,
昨宵秋色已凄然。
云凉琼阁归途远,
耳热才流阆苑偏。
疑似仙歌飞以太,
且随心景话余年。
倏而风冷吹浮客,
节换时移在眼前。

About this poem

In "The Beginning of Winter," the author explores profound existential themes through metaphors and imagery. The seasonal transition from autumn to winter serves as a powerful metaphor for the emotional and intellectual famines that the speaker experiences, and the poem portrays the tension between emotional desolation and the flickering moments of beauty and insight that punctuate existence. Through the use of contrasts—between warmth and coldness, life and death, spirit and flesh—The author crafts a meditation on the complexities of human experience, where moments of joy and suffering coexist and shape the unfolding of life. The poem leaves readers with a sense of ambivalence about the nature of existence—neither fully bleak nor entirely hopeful, but rather a complex interplay of conflicting forces that make up the texture of life itself. 

Font size:
 

Written on November 07, 2024

Submitted by chinamcc8 on November 18, 2024

Modified by chinamcc8 on November 18, 2024

30 sec read
437 Views

William He

 · 1961

William Yu He graduated from two of the most prestigious law schools in China respectively, also studied in Heidelberg, Cambridge and Harvard. He has published dozens of classical poems and lyrics in Chinese language. Three of his poems were collected in the antholog “call my name and I 'll be there" published in February, 2024. He is know for five of his poems included in the anthology in English "Dancing on Moonbeams" published in USA in September, 2024. He already published his English poetry anthology "Eyes Wide Open: Poems by William He" in USA. The Incumbent President of China quoted his classic poem in 2017. The President of Harvard University recognized his achievements in June, 2021. more…

All William He poems | William He Books

28 fans


Translation

Find a translation for this poem in other languages:

Select another language:

  • - Select -
  • 简体中文 (Chinese - Simplified)
  • 繁體中文 (Chinese - Traditional)
  • Español (Spanish)
  • Esperanto (Esperanto)
  • 日本語 (Japanese)
  • Português (Portuguese)
  • Deutsch (German)
  • العربية (Arabic)
  • Français (French)
  • Русский (Russian)
  • ಕನ್ನಡ (Kannada)
  • 한국어 (Korean)
  • עברית (Hebrew)
  • Gaeilge (Irish)
  • Українська (Ukrainian)
  • اردو (Urdu)
  • Magyar (Hungarian)
  • मानक हिन्दी (Hindi)
  • Indonesia (Indonesian)
  • Italiano (Italian)
  • தமிழ் (Tamil)
  • Türkçe (Turkish)
  • తెలుగు (Telugu)
  • ภาษาไทย (Thai)
  • Tiếng Việt (Vietnamese)
  • Čeština (Czech)
  • Polski (Polish)
  • Bahasa Indonesia (Indonesian)
  • Românește (Romanian)
  • Nederlands (Dutch)
  • Ελληνικά (Greek)
  • Latinum (Latin)
  • Svenska (Swedish)
  • Dansk (Danish)
  • Suomi (Finnish)
  • فارسی (Persian)
  • ייִדיש (Yiddish)
  • հայերեն (Armenian)
  • Norsk (Norwegian)
  • English (English)

Discuss the poem The Beginning of Winter with the community...

6 Comments
  • Arman_1
    Beautiful
    LikeReply11 hours ago
  • nahidha2008
    Wow.. really good
    LikeReply13 hours ago
  • debraw.71122
    Great write, for us we are going from fall to winter now.
    LikeReply1 day ago
  • Xuan-An
    nice
    LikeReply1 day ago
  • susanh.04604
    Oh wow! You are an extraordinary poet! You should publish!
    LikeReply1 day ago
  • susan.brumel
    Often the transition from one season to another, especially autumn to winter, leaves us feeling a sense of loss and transition ourselves. I enjoyed the metaphor and use of contrasts to convey this in your poem. 
    LikeReply2 days ago

Citation

Use the citation below to add this poem to your bibliography:

Style:MLAChicagoAPA

"Poetry.com" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 20 Nov. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/>.

Become a member!

Join our community of poets and poetry lovers to share your work and offer feedback and encouragement to writers all over the world!

November 2024

Poetry Contest

Join our monthly contest for an opportunity to win cash prizes and attain global acclaim for your talent.
10
days
0
hours
21
minutes

Special Program

Earn Rewards!

Unlock exciting rewards such as a free mug and free contest pass by commenting on fellow members' poems today!

Quiz

Are you a poetry master?

»
Who wrote the nonsense poem Jabberwocky?
A Edward Lear
B Ogden Nash
C Lewis Carroll
D Spike Milligan

Our favorite collection of

Famous Poets

»