The poem
Deer Park (鹿柴, Lù Zhài) by Wang Wei (王维).
空山不见人kōng shān bú jiàn rénIn the empty mountains I see no one,
但闻人语响dàn wén rén yǔ xiǎngBut I hear the sound of voices.
返景入深林fǎn yǐng rù shēn línEvening sunlight comes back into the deep forest
复照青苔上fù zhào qīng tái shàngAnd shines again on the green moss.
What it means
Wang Wei was a painter as well as a poet, and this reads like a small picture: a quiet forest, distant voices and a patch of late sunlight on moss. Note that 景 is read yǐng here, an old reading meaning sunlight.
Characters to know
- 山 shān: mountain
- 人 rén: person
- 林 lín: forest
- 青 qīng: green-blue
How to practise it
Read the poem aloud together first, then write one line a day using the line buttons above the worksheet. By the end of the week your child can write the whole poem and knows what each line means. When it feels easy, set tracing to 0 and write it from memory.
More poems to print
- 静夜思 Quiet Night Thoughts
- 春晓 Spring Dawn
- 咏鹅 Ode to the Goose
- 登鹳雀楼 On the Stork Tower
- 悯农 Pity the Farmers
- 江雪 River Snow
- 咏柳 Ode to the Willow
- 画 A Painting
- 草 Grass
- 寻隐者不遇 Looking for the Hermit
- 相思 Thinking of You
- 游子吟 Song of the Traveller
More worksheets
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