China was a nation of songbirds—a country of poetry. According to ancient Chinese poetics, poets would not express their emotional experiences directly; instead, they infused their feelings into the external objects they described. These images were never selected at random, but were the manifestations of the poet’s shrewd power of observation and unique artistic view. This lecture will discuss four widely used images—the moon, birds, clouds, and rivers—and will illustrate how imagery awakens the reader’s sensory perceptions and helps the reader visualize beautiful poems.