Yi I
Broad in courage, vast in vision, firm as iron and stone,
Amid the flash of swords and gleam of blades he freely soared.
On that sleepless night when Dragon Flower was steeped in blood,
Still he composed a little poem set to string and pipe.
[1]
Lu Xun
(1881–1936), a native of Shaoxing, Zhejiang Province, was a great modern writer, thinker, and revolutionary.
[2]
The sleepless night when Dragon Flower was steeped in blood refers to the late night of February 7, 1931, when the Kuomintang reactionaries secretly murdered 23 revolutionary youths, including the "Left-Wing League" writers Rou Shi, Hu Yepin, Li Weisen, Bai Mang, and Feng Keng, at Dragon Flower in Shanghai. In his essay "For the Sake of Forgetting in Commemoration," Lu Xun wrote: "In the deep of night... I felt heavily that I had lost good friends and that China had lost fine youths. In grief and indignation I sank into silence, yet old habits raised their heads from the silence and gathered into these lines: 'Accustomed to long nights passing through springtime...'" "Steeped in blood" means blood flowing everywhere.
[3]
"Composed a little poem" refers to Lu Xun's poem "A Seven-Character Regulated Verse – Untitled": "Accustomed to long nights passing through springtime, / With wife and child, my temples thread with white. / In dreams I dimly see my loving mother's tears, / On city walls the great king's banners change. / I cannot bear to see my comrades turned to new ghosts, / In wrath I seek a little poem among the blades. / Chanting it, I lower my brows, no place to write, / Moonlight like water shines on my black gown." "Set to string and pipe" means set to music.

Two Quatrains – Commemorating Lu Xun's Eightieth Birthday
II
By the Mirror Lake and Yue King's Terrace, a land of famous men,
Grieved for the nation, his heart broke with pain.
The Sword-South songs join the Autumn Wind chant,
All alike, rich poetic spirit enters the poem-bag.
[1]
"By the Mirror Lake and Yue King's Terrace, a land of famous men": Mirror Lake lies two kilometers southwest of Shaoxing city in Zhejiang Province. Nearby is the Kuai Pavilion where Lu You, a native of Shanyin (present-day Shaoxing), recited his poems. The late Qing woman revolutionary Qiu Jin (1875–1907) was also from Shanyin and styled herself the Mirror Lake Heroine. Yue King's Terrace was built by King Goujian of Yue during the Spring and Autumn period at Kuaiji (present-day Shaoxing) to recruit worthy men. This line means that Lu Xun's hometown, Shaoxing, is a place where famous men of ancient and modern times gather.
[2]
"The Sword-South songs join the Autumn Wind chant": "Sword-South songs" refers to the poems collected in Lu You's poetry anthology "Sword-South Poems." "Autumn Wind chant" refers to Qiu Jin's poem "Song of the Autumn Wind" and the only confession she wrote before being executed by the Qing government: "The autumn wind, the autumn rain, make one utterly desolate." "Join the Autumn Wind chant" means together with the Autumn Wind chant.
[3]
"All alike, rich poetic spirit enters the poem-bag": "All alike" means uniformly, the same. "Rich poetic spirit" describes dense mist or vapor; here it is a metaphor for the rich poetic flavor and patriotic fervor in the poems of Lu You, Qiu Jin, and Lu Xun. "Poem-bag" refers to a bag for holding poem drafts. Li Shangyin's "A Short Biography of Li He" says that Li He "carried a worn brocade bag on his back, and whenever he got a line, he would write it down and throw it into the bag."