Thank you.

I take that when you say "modern Chinese", you mean the colloquial Chinese, right? If yes, I wouldn't rule out the possiblilty that modern Chinese could be mastered well in imagination. So the question would become who conducts the language. Some Chinese experts might even argue that modern Chinese can do even better than English. In my opinion, it depends on how well a writer (poet, in this case) can handle the connotations of the terms, especially when it comes to poetry. Certainly, even the same term (same literal meaning in Chinese and in English) could have different connotations in both languages. That's why I think a good translation needs a lot of effort.  

I am glad you enjoy the poems. I hope you won't be disappointed too much in modern Chinese for my amateurish Chinese-poem writing.