Sleeping in Boats at Night: Poems of Wandering Souls

In ancient China, travel was often challenging due to the high cost of transportation, difficulty navigating unfamiliar terrain, and safety concerns along the way. Unlike today, accommodations were scarce, with few inns available for travelers to rest. As a result, sleeping in boats along the river was a common practice. In this article, we have translated three poems—spanning nearly a thousand years—written by poets who captured the landscapes they encountered and the feelings they experienced while spending the night on a boat.

枫桥夜泊  Mooring by a Maple Bridge at Night

张继 （Author: Zhang Ji, 8th century)

月落乌啼霜满天，moon fall crow crying frost fill sky
江枫渔火对愁眠。river maple fisherman fire face sorrow sleep
姑苏城外寒山寺，Gu Su city outside cold mountain temple
夜半钟声到客船   night half bell sound arrive guest boat

Translation:
The moon sets: crows call out. Frost fills the sky.
And I, staring at the maple trees and fishing fires by the river,
Drift into an unhappy sleep.

Cold Mountain Temple lies beyond Gu Su City,
But at midnight the sound of the bell
Reaches all the way to this traveler’s boat.

题龙阳县青草湖    Writings by the Green Grass Lake in Long Yang County

唐珙  （Author: Tang Gong, approximately 13-14th century)

西风吹老洞庭波，west wind blow old dong ting wave
一夜湘君白发多    one night Xiang Lady white hair many
醉后不知天在水， drunk after not know sky/milky way at water
满船清梦压星河。 fill with boat clear dreams press star river

Translation:
The western wind blows hard, stirring the waves of Lake Dongting
In a single night, the Xiang River's deity, her hair turns white.
Drunk, I don’t know that the stars are mirrored in the water,
Vivid dreams fill the boat, bearing down on the river of stars.

舟夜书所见    On a Boat at Night Writing About What I Saw

查慎行            (Author: Zha Shenxing, 17th century)

月黑见渔灯， moon dark appear fisherman lantern
孤光一点萤。 alone light one spot firefly
微微风簇浪， tiny tiny wind pile up/make wave
散作满河星。 scatter become filled with river star

Translation:
Tonight, the moon is dark
A fisherman’s lantern appears.
Its lonely gleam like a firefly.

But when a breeze makes the water ripple
The light scatters
Until the river fills with stars.

Translation Notes:

The first poem was written by Zhang Ji, a Tang dynasty poet who fled south during the An Lushan Rebellion, which devastated the northern regions of the Tang Empire. His sorrowful mood as he drifted into sleep on a boat stemmed not only from the general melancholy felt by travelers far from home, but also from his deep concerns about his own future and the fate of the Tang Empire amid the turmoil of war.

Several centuries later, during the Song dynasty, a Chinese literary critic dismissed the second couplet of Zhang Ji’s poem as unrealistic, arguing that it would have been impossible for a temple to strike its bell in the middle of the night. However, contemporary historians have pointed to historical records indicating that temples near Gu Su City had a tradition of ringing bells at midnight, suggesting that Zhang Ji’s imagery probably has been based on actual experiences rather than poetic exaggeration.

The second poem was written by Tang Gong, a poet who lived during the transition between the Southern Song and Yuan dynasties. At that time, China Proper was under Mongol rule, yet Gong remained intellectually loyal to the former Southern Song dynasty. His first couplet signals the arrival of autumn. Interestingly, instead of explicitly lamenting the autumn season, he discusses the legend of Lady Xiang, the wife of King Shun, a legendary ruler from ancient times. According to legend, upon hearing her husband’s death, Lady Xiang was overcome with grief and drowned herself in the Xiang River, transforming into a deity. Gong uses the imagery of Lady Xiang’s hair turning white overnight as a metaphor for his own sorrow.

The second couplet takes on a dreamlike quality. After getting drunk and drifting into sleep on his boat, Gong described his dreams as filling the boat, bearing down upon the river of stars, as if he were floating through the Milky Way itself.

The third poem was written by Zha Shenxing, a Qing Dynasty poet known for portraying natural scenery. It is said that the style of his poems was heavily influenced by Su Shi and Lu You, two famous Song Dynasty poets. The first and the second couplet of this poem form an interesting comparison: In the first couplet, the images are quiet and still, with the gleam from the fisherman’s lantern like a firefly. By contrast, in the second couplet, the images become dynamic when a breeze makes the water ripple. We translated the second couplet with simple languages and took the liberty of adding “the light scatters” to make the meaning clear. Interestingly, in these ancient Chinese poems describing poets’ experiences of sleeping in a boat at night, a fisherman’s lantern or fishing fires emerges as a recurring theme.