新雷
[清]张维屏
造物无言却有情，
每于寒尽觉春生。
千红万紫安排著，
只待新雷第一声。
The First Thunder
Zhang Weiping
Mute Nature has a feeling heart,
Spring comes to see cold winter part.
All flowers are ready to burst,
But wait for thunder to roar first.
“New Thunder” was written by Zhang Weiping, a Qing Dynasty writer, in the early spring of the fourth year of Daoguang (1824) while he was serving in Songzi. The poem expresses the poet’s joy for the coming of spring and his urgent desire for a new society and a new life through praises of nature and calls for beautiful spring and new thunder full of vitality. It can be seen from the poem that the poet, who was on the eve of a major historical change, had already vaguely realized the requirements of the times to get rid of the old and usher in the new. It is similar to Gong Zizhen’s cry in “Miscellaneous Poems of Ji Hai” fifteen years later: “The vitality of the nine states depends on wind and thunder.” This poem cleverly uses the artistic technique of empathy and the aesthetic means of pregnant moments to express emotions through objects. The emotion is sincere, fresh and meaningful, delicate and profound, and full of philosophical meaning.
