The snowflakes have barely fluttered like butterflies before the embroidered curtain when they resemble countless jade maidens turning their dancing sleeves together; the scene, like falling blossoms and hazy flying catkins, keeps recalling to me the days since our parting at Ba Bridge.

Inside the small, richly fragrant bed tent, the water clock continues marking the long night. Let the moonlight deepen and clouds gather outside: the cold cannot reach the tasseled curtains. I only cherish that slender plum tree in the rear courtyard.

上林春令: a ci tune pattern. 蝴蝶、玉女舞袖、落花飞絮: butterflies, the dancing sleeves of jade maidens, falling blossoms, and drifting willow fluff—a succession of metaphors for falling snow.

灞桥: Ba Bridge, east of Chang'an, often associated in classical poetry with breaking willow twigs at a farewell. 斗帐: A small square bed tent. 永漏: The sound of the water clock marking a long night.

流苏: silk tassels hanging from curtains or canopies, here standing for the curtains themselves. 梅瘦: the sparse, slender plum branches, with a suggestion of tenderness and pity. “夜寒不近流苏”—“the night’s cold does not approach the tassels”—describes the separation between the curtained interior and the cold outside.

Reading guide: The title explicitly records seeing snow on the thirtieth day of the eleventh month, but gives no verifiable year. Falling snow leads the lyric into memories of parting, before it turns from warmth within the bed curtains to the slender plum tree outside in the courtyard, combining delight in snow with pity for flowers.

The first stanza changes metaphors repeatedly, showing the same snowfall fluttering, swirling, and drifting down. “灞桥别后” (“after our parting at Ba Bridge”) suddenly turns the contemplation of snow into a memory of farewell, lending emotion to the beautiful scene.

In the lower stanza, the gaze extends from inside the bed curtains to the courtyard outside. Being able to shelter from the cold only deepens the speaker’s concern for the plum blossoms in the wind and snow. The ending does not state the feeling directly, but entrusts its quiet delicacy to the single word “怜” (“to cherish with tender concern”).