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A moving boat moored by a misty islet;
Day ends, a traveler’s grief renews.
The plains: vast heaven and low trees—
The river clears and moon nears man.
宿建德江
移舟泊烟渚，
日暮客愁新。
野旷天低树，
江清月近人。
I suspect but don’t know for sure that the actual explicit people would have been understood as first person referents—so the “traveler” would be read as “this traveler,” and so on. “Low” may be a verb: “the vast sky lowers to the trees,” which would be more parallel to the next line. For what it’s worth, there’s a Jiande River in Zhejiang Province, on the coast just south of the Yangtze delta, and a Jiande city with a river a little inland of modern Shanghai.
Meng Haoran was another major Tang poet, influential (including on his friend Wang Wei) for his nature poems foregrounding humans in the landscapes.
My poetic sense is still embryonic, but it thinks this is the best poem I’ve poked at since Deer Enclosure. Wish I could appreciate the sonics, obscured by centuries of sound-changes. (Decent meter, zilch rhyme — ah well.)
—L.
Day ends, a traveler’s grief renews.
The plains: vast heaven and low trees—
The river clears and moon nears man.
宿建德江
移舟泊烟渚，
日暮客愁新。
野旷天低树，
江清月近人。
I suspect but don’t know for sure that the actual explicit people would have been understood as first person referents—so the “traveler” would be read as “this traveler,” and so on. “Low” may be a verb: “the vast sky lowers to the trees,” which would be more parallel to the next line. For what it’s worth, there’s a Jiande River in Zhejiang Province, on the coast just south of the Yangtze delta, and a Jiande city with a river a little inland of modern Shanghai.
Meng Haoran was another major Tang poet, influential (including on his friend Wang Wei) for his nature poems foregrounding humans in the landscapes.
My poetic sense is still embryonic, but it thinks this is the best poem I’ve poked at since Deer Enclosure. Wish I could appreciate the sonics, obscured by centuries of sound-changes. (Decent meter, zilch rhyme — ah well.)
—L.