粗犷豪放的北方，温柔和婉的南方，这些区别在他们各自的语言、音乐和诗歌中都能看到。
The raw, rugged North and the soft,pliable South--one can see these differences in their language, music and poetry.
南方人的诗歌
在诗歌中，这种区别就更加明显了，尤其在公元4、5、6世纪。当时，北方中国第一次被鞑靼人征服，北方的文人移居南方。这时，伤感的爱情诗在南朝盛行。许多南朝的君主都是了不起的抒情歌手。一种题材别致的爱情小曲《子夜歌》也在民间产生并发展起来了。对比一下这些感伤的诗歌与北方新鲜、质朴的诗歌是很有启发的。南方佚名的诗人在这种很流行的小曲中唱道：
〖打杀长鸣鸡，弹去鸟臼鸟。
愿得连冥不复曙，一年都一晓。〗
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：
〖途涩无人行，冒寒往相觅。
若不信依时，但看雪上迹。〗
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.
北方人的诗歌
南宋之际，一种称作“词”的有独特风格的抒情诗发展起来了。其内容不外是妇女的深闺幽怨，红烛泪干，中意的胭脂、眉笔、丝绸、帏帐、珠帘朱栏，无可挽回的春天，清瘦的恋人，羸弱的心上人儿等等。写这种伤感的诗歌的人应该被写那种简短、质朴、直接描写北方荒凉风景而不加雕饰的诗歌的人所征服，这实在也是自然的事。下面是一首典型的北方诗歌：
〖敕勒川，阴山下。天似穹庐，笼盖四野。
天苍苍，野茫茫，风吹草低见牛羊。〗
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.
一个北方将领在遭到惨败之后，正是用这首诗把他的士兵又集合起来，送上前线去战斗。我们再来看一首歌咏新买宝刀的诗歌，与南方的爱情诗歌作一对比：
〖新买五尺刀，悬著中梁柱。
一日三摩挲，剧于十五女。〗
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!
另一首诗是这样写的：
〖遥看孟津河，杨柳郁婆姿；
我是虏家儿，不解汉儿歌。
健儿须快马，快马须健儿；
跋涉黄尘下，然后别雄雌。〗
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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