With monkeys whimpering on the shadowy mountain,
And the river rushing through the night,
And a wind in the leaves along both banks,
And the moon athwart my solitary sail,
I, a stranger in this inland district,
Homesick for my Yangzhou friends,
Send eastward two long streams of tears
To find the nearest touch of the sea.
Original Poem
「宿桐庐江寄广陵旧游」
孟浩然
山暝听猿愁，沧江急夜流。
风鸣两岸叶，月照一孤舟。
建德非吾土，维扬忆旧游。
还将两行泪，遥寄海西头。
Interpretation
This poem was composed in the 18th year of the Kaiyuan era (730 AD), when Meng Haoran was forty-one years old. The previous year, he had failed the imperial examinations in Chang'an and, in anger, written the lines "To the Northern Palace, no more petitions I send; / To the South Mountain, to my humble hut I wend," resolving to retreat into reclusion. Yet after returning to seclusion, Meng Haoran did not truly settle down. In the autumn of 730, he left Xiangyang and began a multi-year wandering through the Wu-Yue region. This was a self-imposed exile, a spiritual vagrancy. He traveled down the Han River into the Yangtze, passing through Xunyang, Jiande, and Tonglu, all the way eastward to the heart of Yue. On the surface, he was touring mountains and waters; in truth, he was using geographical distance to dilute the pain of his failure. The familiar landscapes of Xiangyang had become memories he needed to escape—because every scene of his hometown reminded him that he had returned still a commoner.
The Tonglu River, in present-day Tonglu County, Zhejiang Province, is flanked by exquisite mountain scenery, a place where Southern Dynasty writers like Xie Lingyun and Shen Yue had once traveled and sung. Yet when Meng Haoran moored his boat here, he had no heart for scenic appreciation. The line "Jiande is not my native soil" reveals the essence of this journey: he was not "traveling"; he was "drifting." Jiande was not home; Guangling (Yangzhou) was not home; the entire landscape of the southeast was not home. He was nothing but a rootless boat, carried by fate's current toward an unknown distance. The title's phrase "sent to old friends in Guangling" reveals the poem's true motive. Guangling, or Yangzhou, was the most prosperous metropolis of the southeast in the Tang Dynasty, and a place where Meng Haoran had made friends during his earlier travels. As he moored for the night at Tonglu, alone with his solitary boat on the cold river, those days of poetry, wine, and high spirits in Yangzhou suddenly seemed infinitely distant, and infinitely precious. And so he entrusted two lines of hot tears to the eastward-flowing river—the only token he could send to that faraway place.
First Couplet: "山暝听猿愁，沧江急夜流。"
Shān míng tīng yuán chóu, cāng jiāng jí yè liú.
Dark hills, gibbons cry—listening brings sorrow;
The gray river races on through the night.
The poem opens with a heavy weight of oppression. "Dark hills" is the sinking of sight; "gibbons cry—listening brings sorrow" is the mourning of hearing. The cry of gibbons had long been a fixed symbol of traveler's grief in classical poetry, but Meng Haoran does not write "gibbons cry" and stop; he writes "listening brings sorrow"—it is not the gibbons that are sorrowful, but the person listening to them. This single shift transforms the scene from objective description to subjective projection. The line "The gray river races on through the night" carries the heaviest force in the entire poem. The word "races" describes the water's urgency, but it is also an externalization of the poet's inner state. Why does the river race? Because the mountains compel it, because the night drives it, but more than anything, because the restless grief in the poet's chest surges out through the river's flow. At this moment, Meng Haoran is just like this solitary boat on the river—pushed by an unseen force, not knowing where the shore is, not knowing when he will stop.
Second Couplet: "风鸣两岸叶，月照一孤舟。"
Fēng míng liǎng àn yè, yuè zhào yī gū zhōu.
Wind rustles the leaves on both river banks;
Moonlight shines on one lone boat.
This couplet represents the ultimate expression of "aloneness" in Tang poetry. "Wind rustles" is the clamor of all things—the entire forest vibrates in the wind, every leaf makes its own sound. Amidst this myriad of noises, "one lone boat" is singled out by the moonlight, like the sole spotlight on an empty stage. This is not a contrast between the many and the one; it is the separation between the world and the self. "Moonlight shines" is a natural phenomenon devoid of emotion, yet here it becomes a kind of judgment: it does not illuminate the green hills, it does not illuminate the river waters; it chooses to shine on this one lone boat, as if forcing the poet's solitude into a place where it cannot hide. Wang Wei wrote, "In the deep forest, no one knows; the bright moon comes to shine on me"—that is the fulfillment of solitude. But Meng Haoran's line is the inescapability of solitude. The same bright moon, to the recluse, is a kindred spirit; to the wanderer, it is a witness—witnessing that he has nothing, witnessing that he has no one.
Third Couplet: "建德非吾土，维扬忆旧游。"
Jiàn dé fēi wú tǔ, wéi yáng yì jiù yóu.
Jiande is not my native soil;
I think of old friends in Yangzhou.
The poem shifts from scene to feeling, the turn as natural as a river changing course. "Jiande is not my native soil" is the true condition of this journey, and the fundamental dilemma of Meng Haoran's later life: he cannot return to Xiangyang, he cannot reach Chang'an; Jiande is not home, Yangzhou is not home. Every geographical coordinate is merely a footnote to "not my native soil." And so "I think of old friends in Yangzhou" is not merely nostalgia; it is a desperate search for belonging. He does not miss the scenery of Yangzhou, nor its prosperity; he misses the version of himself that still had friends by his side in Yangzhou. At that time, he had not yet failed the exams, had not yet suffered the humiliation of being "spurned by the wise ruler," had not yet been cornered by time and fate. It is not so much that he misses his old friends, as that he misses the self that could still be recognized by those old friends.
Fourth Couplet: "还将两行泪，遥寄海西头。"
Hái jiāng liǎng háng lèi, yáo jì hǎi xī tóu.
I take these two lines of tears
And send them far to the western shore of the sea.
The conclusion releases a surge of emotion, yet it is held remarkably steady by the opening words "I take these." "Two lines of tears" is the only line in the entire poem that directly expresses feeling, yet because of the heavy groundwork laid by the preceding six lines, it does not seem abrupt. These tears are not an outpouring; they are a conclusion. Not a collapse; a delivery. "Send them far to the western shore of the sea" uses an action that defies physical common sense—how can tears be sent to a distant place? Yet it is precisely in this impossibility that the depth of feeling resides. The poet knows his friends will never receive these tears, just as he knows he can never return to those days. But he must still write, still send, still let the river carry away these two lines of salt liquid, as if, once they merge with the gray river, they can follow the night current to that place called Yangzhou. This is the ritual of despair, the final salute of a wanderer to the world of stability.
Holistic Appreciation
This poem is a masterpiece of Meng Haoran's Wu-Yue wandering period, and a peak achievement in the Tang poetry of "traveler's grief." Its deepest tragedy lies not in its thorough depiction of the suffering of wandering, but in its revelation that the wanderer no longer has anywhere to "return" to. After leaving Chang'an, Meng Haoran wrote "To the South Mountain, to my humble hut I wend"—at that time, he still had the South Mountain to return to, a humble hut to inhabit. But now, on the Tonglu River, Jiande is not his native soil, Yangzhou holds only memories of old friends, and Xiangyang is a thousand miles away. Every geographical coordinate is "not my native soil"; every emotional anchor point is "I think of old friends." This is the confession of a man who has lost his roots. It is not that he does not want to go home; it is that home has become, in both space and time, unreachably distant.
Structurally, the poem follows a precise trajectory of sinking inward: the first couplet is the external world of mountains and rivers; the second couplet is the proximate environment of wind and moon; the third couplet is the psychological space of geography and memory; the fourth couplet is the inner torrent of tears and heart. Across the four couplets, the field of vision contracts continuously, while emotion expands continuously, until the end, where it bursts like a dam breaking, yet releases itself in the most restrained manner—not a wailing sob, but two lines of clear tears, sent far to the western shore of the sea. This "surge within restraint" is the essence of Meng Haoran's late-period poetic realm.
Thematically, the poem's core lies in the desperate tension between "not my native soil" and "I think of old friends." "Jiande is not my native soil" is rootlessness in space; "I think of old friends in Yangzhou" is irrecoverability in time. The word "not" negates the present; the word "think of" points to the past. The present offers no place to rest; the past cannot be revisited. The poet is suspended between these two impossibilities, with no future, only the futile sending of "two lines of tears."
Artistically, the poem's most moving quality lies in its use of physical impossibility to convey the truth of emotion. Tears cannot be sent, yet the poet insists on sending them; his friends will never receive them, yet he insists on writing. This ritual of doing what one knows cannot be done is the most moving gesture of despair. It is not a wail, yet it is more heartbreaking than a wail—because weeping still has an object to release toward, while his tears can only be entrusted to the river.
Artistic Merits
- Treatment of Images in Isolation: The core images of the poem—"the gray river races on through the night," "one lone boat," "two lines of tears"—each possess an indivisible wholeness. The river is not just any river, but "the gray river races on through the night"; the boat is not any boat, but "one lone boat"; the tears are not many tears, but "two lines of tears." Every image is trimmed to its essence, not a single element can be removed.
- Interweaving of Sound and Sight: The first couplet begins with "listening to gibbons," the second couplet continues with "wind rustles"—auditory images are densely packed. Yet "moonlight shines," "one lone boat," and "two lines of tears" are entirely visual. Sound and shadow interlace, making the night on the Tonglu River both noisy and silent, both clamorous and solitary.
- Emotional Encoding of Place Names: Jiande, Yangzhou, the western shore of the sea—these three place names form the poem's emotional coordinate system. Jiande is the place of present hardship; Yangzhou is the warm memory of the past; the western shore of the sea is the direction of emotional projection. Place names are no longer geographical markers; they become the emotional contours on the map of the poet's life.
- Creative Transformation of the Tear Image: Countless Tang poems write of tears, but most are "tears wetting the robe" or "tears falling like rain." Meng Haoran's "I take these two lines of tears / And send them far to the western shore of the sea" transforms tears from a passive "shedding" into an active "sending," giving grief a direction, giving vulnerability a strength.
Insights
This poem tells us: the essence of wandering is not having no direction, but having every direction point toward a past that cannot be revisited. The two lines of tears Meng Haoran shed on the Tonglu River were not meant to win sympathy, nor to accuse fate. They were meant to help him remember that he once had people worth shedding tears over, that he once had times worth shedding tears for. In the boundless expanse of wandering, this act of "remembering" is itself the last anchor.
Every age has countless people for whom "Jiande is not my native soil"—they leave their hometown but never reach a distant shore; they live in a strange land, yet their hearts are tied to another strange land. The home of geography has long blurred, but the coordinate of memory grows ever clearer. Meng Haoran, on behalf of all such people, wrote a letter that could never be delivered, addressed to a place called "the western shore of the sea." That letter was never signed for. But those two lines of tears still hang between the lines of Tang poetry, waiting for every person who, in the deep of night, feels they have nowhere to go, to meet them across the river.
Poem translator
Kiang Kanghu
About the poet
Meng Haoran (孟浩然 689 - 740), a native of Xiangyang, Hubei Province, was a renowned landscape and pastoral poet of the Tang Dynasty. In his early years, he lived in seclusion on Mount Lumen, reading for his own pleasure. At the age of forty, he traveled to the capital to take the jinshi examination but failed. Thereafter, he remained a commoner for the rest of his life, roaming the Wu and Yue regions and finding contentment in poetry and wine. He excelled in five-character verse, with a style that is light and natural, often depicting the pleasures of landscapes and reclusion. He is regarded as a representative of the High Tang landscape and pastoral poetry school. His collected works, Meng Haoran Ji, have been handed down, and his poetry exerted a profound influence on later hermitic poetic traditions.
