Distance, Return and Journey
Follow waiting, rain-filled longing and swift travel to see how classical poetry links distance, time and return.
9 items
Written on a Rainy Night to the North
You ask when I will return; no date is set. Night rain in the Ba Mountains swells the autumn pools. When shall we trim a candle together by the western window and speak again of this night of rain in the Ba Mountains?
夜雨寄北
Poetry · seven-character quatrainDeparting Baidi City at Dawn
At dawn I leave Baidi amid rose-tinted clouds; a thousand li to Jiangling, returned in a single day. Gibbons call without cease from both banks, while my light boat has already passed ten thousand mountains.
早发白帝城
Poetry · five-character quatrainMooring for the Night on the Jiande River
I move the boat and moor by a misted sandbar; the sun sets, and a traveler's sorrow is new again. The plain is wide, the sky hangs below the trees; the river is clear, and the moon comes close to a person.
宿建德江
Poetry · seven-character quatrainWritten on Coming Home
I left home young and come back old; my home accent unchanged, the hair at my temples thinned. The children see me and do not know me; laughing, they ask where the guest has come from.
回乡偶书
Poetry · seven-character quatrainOn the Ninth Day of the Ninth Month, Remembering My Brothers
Alone in another region, a stranger there, at every festival I think of my kin twice as much. From far off I know my brothers are on the heights, and where all wear dogwood, one man is missing.
九月九日忆山东兄弟
Poetry · seven-character quatrainSeeing Off Xin Jian at Hibiscus Tower
Cold rain merged with the river as we entered Wu by night; at first light I see my friend off, and the Chu hills stand alone. If kin and friends in Luoyang should ask about me, say a single piece of ice-clear heart is in a jade vessel.
芙蓉楼送辛渐
Poetry · seven-character quatrainA Liangzhou Song
Fine grape wine in a cup that shines at night; just as we would drink, the pipa on horseback urges us. If I lie drunk on the battlefield, do not laugh at me— how many, since ancient times, have come back from war?
凉州词
Poetry · seven-character quatrainHearing a Flute by Night on the Shouxiang Wall
Before Huile Peak the sand is like snow; beyond the Shouxiang wall the moon is like frost. No one knows where a reed pipe is being blown— all night the campaigning men gaze toward home.
夜上受降城闻笛
Poetry · seven-character quatrainOut Beyond the Passes
The bright moon of Qin, the frontier pass of Han; from the march of ten thousand li the men have not returned. If only the Flying General of Longcheng were here, he would not let the Hu horses cross the Yin Mountains.
出塞