Figure and ground are important concepts in cognitive linguistics and they relate to the prominence and focus in the cognitive process. Tang poetry is an important form of ancient Chinese literature, in which poets use different images to create a picture and highlight the center. Li Bai is the most outstanding poet in the prosperous Tang Dynasty. He has created many well-known works, which plays an important role in the study of Tang culture in later generations. In order to promote the spread of Chinese traditional culture, many translators try to translate Tang poetry into English, among which Xu Yuanchong's translation of Selected Poems of Li Bai is highly accepted. Based on the theory of figure and ground, this paper makes a contrastive study of Li Bai's Poems Passing by the Triumphal Tower at Night and On the Western Tower of Jinling and their English versions translated by Xu Yuanchong. It is found that the differences between Chinese and English will affect the construction of the figure and ground relationship between the original poem and the English translation, which provides a new perspective and certain reference for the future study of poetry translation.