粗獷豪放的北方，溫柔和婉的南方，這些區別在他們各自的語言、音樂和詩歌中都能看到。
The raw, rugged North and the soft,pliable South--one can see these differences in their language, music and poetry.
南方人的詩歌
在詩歌中，這種區別就更加明顯了，尤其在公元4、5、6世紀。當時，北方中國第一次被韃靼人征服，北方的文人移居南方。這時，傷感的愛情詩在南朝盛行。許多南朝的君主都是了不起的抒情歌手。一種題材別緻的愛情小曲《子夜歌》也在民間產生並發展起來了。對比一下這些感傷的詩歌與北方新鮮、質樸的詩歌是很有啟發的。南方佚名的詩人在這種很流行的小曲中唱道：
〖打殺長鳴雞，彈去鳥臼鳥。
願得連冥不復曙，一年都一曉。〗
In poetry, this difference is strikingly illustrated in the poems of the North and the South during the fourth, fifth and sixth centuries, when northern China was for the first time submerged under a Tartar rule, and the cultured Chinese migrated southward. For it was a time when sentimental love lyrics flourished in the southern courts, and the southern rulers were many of them great lyric poets, while a peculiar form of love ditties, the tzuykko, developed among the people. A contrast between this sentimental poetry and the fresh, naive poetry of the North would be highly instructive. So sang the anonymous poet of the South in the popular ditties:
Kill the ever-crowing cock!
Shoot the early announcer of the dawn!
That there might be an uninterrupted
Rolling darkness till Next Year's morn!
另一首小曲唱道：
〖途澀無人行，冒寒往相覓。
若不信依時，但看雪上跡。〗
Or again:
The road are muddy and forsaken,
Despite the cold I came to thee.
Go and look at the footprints in snow,
If thou wilt not believe me.
北方人的詩歌
南宋之際，一種稱作“詞”的有獨特風格的抒情詩發展起來了。其內容不外是婦女的深閨幽怨，紅燭淚乾，中意的胭脂、眉筆、絲綢、幃帳、珠簾朱欄，無可挽回的春天，清瘦的戀人，羸弱的心上人兒等等。寫這種傷感的詩歌的人應該被寫那種簡短、質樸、直接描寫北方荒涼風景而不加雕飾的詩歌的人所征服，這實在也是自然的事。下面是一首典型的北方詩歌：
〖敕勒川，陰山下。天似穹廬，籠蓋四野。
天蒼蒼，野茫茫，風吹草低見牛羊。〗
During the Southern Sung Dynasty, we saw a peculiar development of a sentimental lyric in intricate meter, the tz'u, which invariably sang of the sad lady in her boudoir, and her tearful red candles at night and the beaded window screens and the painted rails and the departed springs, and pining lovers and emaciated sweethearts. It was natural that a people given to this kinde of sentimental poetry should be conquered by a northern people who had but short, naive lines of poetry, taken, as it were, direct and without embellishment from the dreary northern landscape.
Down by the Chehleh river,
Beneath the Yin hills,
Like an inverted cup is the sky
That covers the wateland.
Enormous is hte earth,
And the the sky is a deep blue;
The winds blows, the tall grass bends,
And the sheep and the cattle come into view.
一個北方將領在遭到慘敗之後，正是用這首詩把他的士兵又集合起來，送上前線去戰鬥。我們再來看一首歌詠新買寶刀的詩歌，與南方的愛情詩歌作一對比：
〖新買五尺刀，懸著中樑柱。
一日三摩挲，劇於十五女。〗
It was with this song that a northern general, after suffering a heavy defeat, rallied his soldiers and sent them again to battle. And in contrast to the southern song of love, we have a general singing about a newly bought broadsword:
I have just bought me a five-foot knife,
I swing it with a gleaming cadence.
I fondle it three times a day,
I won't change it for fifteen maidens!
另一首詩是這樣寫的：
〖遙看孟津河，楊柳鬱婆姿；
我是虜家兒，不解漢兒歌。
健兒須快馬，快馬須健兒；
跋涉黃塵下，然後別雄雌。〗
Another song handed down to us reads:
In the distance I descry the Mengchin river,
The willows and polars stand in silent grace.
I am a Mongol's son,
And don't know Chinese lays.
A good rider requires a swift horse,
And a swift horse requires a good rider.
When it clatters off amidst a cloud of dust,
You know then who wins and who's the outsider.
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