Standing by the lake, I saw the scene of 'a row of egrets rising into the blue sky.'
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From Du Fu's (杜甫) Tang quatrain 《绝句》 (Jueju): 两个黄鹂鸣翠柳，一行白鹭上青天。窗含西岭千秋雪，门泊东吴万里船。 — 'Two orioles sing in the emerald willows; a row of white egrets ascends the blue sky. My window frames the thousand-autumn snows of the western range; at my gate is moored a ship from Wu, ten-thousand li away.' Written in Chengdu around 764, after the An Lushan rebellion's chaos had eased.
usage
Read 行 as háng (a row / line), not xíng. Read 白鹭 as báilù (egret). A standard elementary-school memorized poem — the line is instantly recognizable.
