Plum blossoms without snow always seem to lack something of their spirit; snow without poetry makes a person seem insensitive to elegance. At dusk, just as the poem is finished, snow begins to drift from the sky. Poem, snow, and plum blossoms illuminate one another, together bringing spring to its fullest.

精神: vitality and charm. 俗了人: to make the viewer seem lacking in taste and sensibility. 并作: to combine and become. 十分春: spring in its fullest abundance, not a precise measure of the season.

This is the second of the two Snow and Plum Blossoms poems, echoing the first, which begins “梅雪争春未肯降,” plum blossoms and snow vie for spring, neither willing to yield.

Reading guide: Here Lu Meipo connects plum blossoms, snow, and the act of writing poetry. Poetry is presented as part of a process through which natural beauty and human feeling complete one another, rather than as a judgment made from outside the scene.

The first two lines sound like an argument, but each identifies a relationship of dependence: between plum blossoms and snow, then between snow and poetry. The sudden coincidence of “诗成,” the poem’s completion, and “又雪,” renewed snowfall, in the third line turns an abstract judgment into an immediate delight.

The spring feeling at the end comes from the meeting of several kinds of beauty, rather than any single flower or kind of weather. The light, confident tone expresses the pleasure of participating in nature through appreciation and creation.