下雨的晚上 On a rainy night
看不見星星和月亮 The stars and the moon can’t be seen
他們也跟我們一樣 Just like us
被媽媽關在屋子裡 They’ve been shut up in their rooms by their mother
要等雨停了 And have to wait for the rain to stop
才可以出來玩 Until they can come out to play
Although this poem is from a children’s poet, which may explain its simplistic language, I have to admit I’m not a fan of talking down to kids and it’s not my favourite.
Hsieh Wu-chang (1950-) is a children’s author and poet. He previously worked in advertising and as an editor.
Because of my interest in languages I start to pay attention to poem, all kinds of languages if I could understand, but Tang poems in particular (because it links to Taiwanese lexicon). Certainly reading your site/blog would improve my English but why not you translate from Mandarin with rhyme ? Some Tang poems in English do rhyme.
I’m really just translating the meaning here. Not attempting to rewrite the poem into English.