为了向英语世界人民介绍中国优秀的古典文化,艾黎充分发挥自己具有深厚中国文化修养的优势,将大量的中国古典诗歌翻译成英文,在英语世界传播。在学习中国文化,研究中国历史的过程中,艾黎了解了杜甫,他对中国历史上这位伟大的诗人推崇备至。杜甫的诗歌与精神也对艾黎产生了非常大的影响。

兵车行

车辚辚,马萧萧,行人弓箭各在腰。

爷娘妻子走相送，尘埃不见咸阳桥。

牵衣顿足拦道哭,哭声直上干云霄!

道旁过者问行人，行人但云点行频。

或从十五北防河,便至四十西营田。

去时里正与裹头，归来头白还成边。

边庭流血成海水，武皇开边意未已!

Ballad Of The War Chariots

The jingle of war chariots,

Horses neighing, men marching,

Bows and arrows slung over hips;

Beside them stumbling, running

The mass of parents, wives and children

Clogging up the road, their rising dust

Obscuring the great bridge at Xianyang;

Stamping their feet, weeping

In utter desperation with cries

That seem to reach the clouds;

Ask a soldier: Why do you go?

Would simply bring the answer:

Today men are conscripted often;

Fifteen-year -olds sent up the Yellow River

To fight; men of forty marched away

To colonize the western frontier;

Village elders take young boys,

Do up their hair like adults

To get them off; if they return

It will be white with age, but even then

They may be sent off to the frontier again;

Frontiers on which enough blood has

flowed