yè夜sù宿shān山sì寺

In the poem, the poet spends the night at a temple on a mountaintop and climbs a tall tower to look at the stars. We do not know for sure when it was written or which temple it describes. One view says it is the Fengding Temple on Mount Cai, near today's Huangmei in Hubei. Another version is titled "Written at Fengding Temple" and has slightly different words. Some people also doubt that Li Bai wrote it. Today's textbooks use this version and name Li Bai as the author.

诗里写的是诗人夜里住在山顶的寺庙，登上高楼看星空。这首诗写在什么时候、写的是哪座寺，都没有确定的说法。一说写的是今天湖北黄梅一带蔡山上的峰顶寺。另有一种版本题作《题峰顶寺》，文字稍有不同。也有人怀疑它不是李白写的。现在课本里收的是这个版本，署名李白。

Li Bai (701–762) was one of the most famous Tang poets, called the Immortal of Poetry. He loved to travel among mountains and rivers. He had a huge imagination and often used bold exaggeration, like his line about a waterfall falling three thousand chi. Here, saying you could pick the stars by hand is typical of him: he makes a high place feel like it touches the sky.

李白（701—762），唐代最有名的诗人之一，被人称为“诗仙”。他喜欢游山玩水，想象力特别丰富，写诗常常大胆夸张，比如“飞流直下三千尺”。这首诗里“手可摘星辰”，也是他典型的写法：把高写得仿佛能碰到天。

This poem is all about one thing: height. The first line says plainly that the tower is a hundred chi tall. The second goes further: you could reach out and pick the stars. The last two lines use a clever trick. The poet dares not speak loudly, for fear of waking the immortals in the sky. That means the tower is so close to heaven that the gods are like next-door neighbors. He does not say the word high again, yet it feels even higher. Picture it: late at night, all is quiet, the sky full of stars just above your head. A person stands on the tall tower, holding their breath and speaking in a whisper. The poem has bold exaggeration and a child's wonder too, which is why children love to learn it by heart.

这首诗写的只有一个字：高。第一句直接说楼高百尺。第二句更夸张：伸手就能摘星星。后两句换了一个巧妙的写法：不敢大声说话，怕吵醒天上的神仙。这说明楼离天已经近得像邻居一样了。诗人没有再说“高”字，我们却觉得比前面更高。读的时候可以想象：夜很深，四周很静，满天星星就在头顶，一个人站在高楼上，屏住呼吸，轻轻地说话。诗里有夸张，也有孩子一样的天真和好奇，所以小朋友特别喜欢背这首诗。