By Fang Li (1997）
Written during my first year of graduate school at Yale, Yan Garden in My Dreams looks back on the Peking University campus (Yan Garden) and offers a gentle farewell to my college years.
午夜清风微卷帘，
独枕月光眠。
梦里燕园总似烟。
垂柳青鱼水，夕阳燕子天。
碧箫一曲花旋落，
欲拾境已迁。
华年旧事彩笺间。
笑别无数恨，归去白云边。
(李放 - 1997年4月18日夜于耶鲁)
alone, I sleep, my pillow bathed in moonlight.
In dreams, Yan Garden is always veiled in mist.
Willows drape fish-rippled water;
sunset gilds swallow-crossed sky.
As a jade flute plays, flowers swirl down;
I reach to gather them, but the scene has already changed.
Youthful days and old memories remain only in faded letters.
Smiling, I bid farewell to countless sorrows,
and return to where white clouds drift.
(Fang Li - Night of April 18, 1997, at Yale)
Note: The English rendering attempts to preserve the meaning and imagery of the original, but inevitably loses what makes classical Chinese poetry distinctive: its musical rhythms, compression, symmetry, and cultural registers.