A country lane

[angliholic]

Walking on a small country lane,
My company is a homeward-bound buffalo in the evening.
Blue sky wears a corsage of a setting sun on her chest;
rosy clouds are the gowns of the sunset glow.

Carrying a hoe on my shoulder,
I hear a shepherd boy's song floating in the air.
Oh! They are singing now
with a bamboo flute playing faintly.

Smiles written on the faces,
they are humming a country tune,
leaving trains of thought flying in the evening wind.
How much loneliness and despair there are!
They are all gone with the evening wind
and forgotten on the country lane.


Hi,
The above English rendition is a Chinese song I tried to translate for fun and for practicing my English. It's a beautiful song but I found it hard to translate. So, correct me if there is anything that doens't flow well. Thanks.

 

[meobeo]

I think your translation is great! But the sentence:

Oh! They are singing now with a bamboo flute playing faintly.

is somehow not very grammatically correct to me. If I were you, I would translate it as:

Oh! They are singing now with a bamboo flute played faintly.

Surely a flute cannot play by itself, can it?

 

[angliholic]

I think your translation is great! But the sentence:

Oh! They are singing now with a bamboo flute playing faintly.

is somehow not very grammatically correct to me. If I were you, I would translate it as:

Oh! They are singing now with a bamboo flute played faintly.

Surely a flute cannot play by itself, can it?

Thanks, meobeo, for the correction.

By the way, I missed out two lines in my first post. I post them in the following. Correct me if they don't sound good!

Walking on a small country lane,
My company is a home-bound buffalo in the evening.
Blue sky wears a setting sun as a corsage on her chest;
rosy clouds are the gowns of the sunset glow.

 

[emsr2d2]

I think your translation is great! But the sentence:

Oh! They are singing now with a bamboo flute playing faintly.

is somehow not very grammatically correct to me. If I were you, I would translate it as:

Oh! They are singing now with a bamboo flute played faintly.

Surely a flute cannot play by itself, can it?

It's true that a flute cannot play itself but "with a bamboo flute played faintly" doesn't work. "with a bamboo flute being played faintly" would work, showing that someone is actually playing the flute quietly.

However, despite the fact that musical instruments don't generally play themsleves:

I did the housework with a violin playing quietly in the background.

This could mean that the radio is on and they are broadcasting a violinist, or that someone in my house is playing the violin.

So you could use "...with a bamboo flute playing faintly".

 

[angliholic]

It's true that a flute cannot play itself but "with a bamboo flute played faintly" doesn't work. "with a bamboo flute being played faintly" would work, showing that someone is actually playing the flute quietly.

However, despite the fact that musical instruments don't generally play themsleves:

I did the housework with a violin playing quietly in the background.

This could mean that the radio is on and they are broadcasting a violinist, or that someone in my house is playing the violin.

So you could use "...with a bamboo flute playing faintly".

Thanks, emsr, for the help.

Is there anything else that sounds odd in my rendition?