Clerical Script Album: Chasing Dreams in Youth

Class 6(10) has a poem of its own, a gift to the class from Meng Qinghui, with every classmate's name woven into the lines. I copied it from beginning to end into a single album of twenty-four pages, sixteen characters to a page, with 'Youth Chasing Dreams' on a slip pasted to the kraft-paper cover. Writing an album is not like writing a single strip — ruin one sheet of a strip and you simply take another, but ruin one page of an album and everything after it has to be redone.

ScriptClerical script (regular script on the cover slip)

Pages24

ContentA class poem, 'Youth Chasing Dreams' (gift of Meng Qinghui)

BindingKraft-paper cover · pasted title slip

My partAll the writing · binding

Clerical script24-page albumTranscription available

Flip Through

24 pages · drag, click a page corner, or use the arrow keys

Plates

Click to enlarge

The album laid outAll twenty-four pages spread out in rows

The Work

Full Text

Youth Chasing Dreams Bamboo grows thick for the fire, paulownia flowers scent the air. The day-lily hall opens, its fair forms lovely; the oriole's cry turns to joy, and the dream runs long. A thousand measures of grain — whose home do the returning swallows seek? What is it you seek, when spring scatters its fragrance? Many, many students, wise in counsel and bold in spirit, sail ten thousand li of the sea of learning, seeking its shore. The willows droop and cling; come back and you are a guest, yet you have not failed the pillars of the Sunflower Garden. Retreat, and read the five cartloads in the archive room; advance, and climb the layered peaks of the distant hills. Think on the affairs of the nation — never let the ardor of a loyal heart die; the noble spur themselves on. To overcome the hardship of these times, we who prize learning strive to be first, and pull back the tide that is already falling. Extraordinary deeds will be raised across the world; the dragon is about to rise from the rain-filled deep. With a person like fine jade, who dares laugh at youth? The heart points to the Pole Star; diligent and proud, never failing the young. A year passes; joyfully we meet the new year, bathed in the grace of virtue, and the sparse paulownia piles up green. Snapping a fragrant gardenia, white robes whiter than snow; the fair time flows like water. Spring puts out its blossoms in hope of autumn's fruit; what is past is not pursued. A vast wind rises, the dew on the grass dries at dawn, and receiving the moistening grace of the rain, one hides one's light and bides one's time. The bright moon gleams in the empty sky and the waves wash all away; silk cap and feather fan, a hero for a lifetime; marvelous notes strike the pitch-pipes, and a long song remembers the gathering of ferns. The palm-leaf pages are a thousand beauties, and the day-lily lives long. A youth chasing a dream — heaven has laid a great charge on him; what will he do? Grievances and brooding, idol dreams — when hardship comes, it is the spine that must hold. The small buds hide a few spots of deep red, only waiting to make spring riot on the branch. A gift from Meng Qinghui to Class 6(10)