After rain the empty mountain
Stands autumnal in the evening,
Moonlight in its groves of pine,
Stones of crystal in its brooks.
Bamboos whisper of washer-girls bound home,
Lotus-leaves yield before a fisher-boat --
And what does it matter that springtime has gone,
While you are here, O Prince of Friends?
Original Poem:
「山居秋暝」
王维
空山新雨后， 天气晚来秋。
明月松间照， 清泉石上流。
竹喧归浣女， 莲动下渔舟。
随意春芳歇， 王孙自可留。
Interpretation:
This poem was written by Wang Wei when he was living in Rim River. It depicts the scene of a mountain residence in an autumn evening, and is one of Wang Wei’s best-known works among his many poems about mountain life.
In the first two lines, the valley is empty and fresh after a fresh rain, and the weather is especially cool in the evening of early fall.
This is an autumn evening, just after a rain, a fresh, cool air comes to the face. Read the tone is soothing, expresses the poet’s leisurely state of mind.
The third and fourth lines: the moon shines on the quiet pine forest, clear spring water on the rocks murmuring flow.
After the rain of the pine forest looks extraordinarily fresh, bright moonlight from the dense pine forest sprinkled, clear spring water from the smooth rocks quietly flowed, spring water reflecting the color of the moon, emitting silver light. This line is written moonlight like water, is written “quiet”; written spring flow, is written “dynamic”, dynamic and static combination, a simple ten words to shape a clear and transcendent ideal situation.
The fifth and sixth sentences: the clamor coming from the bamboo forest, I know it is a young girl returning from laundry, the lotus leaves are swaying gently, I know it is a light boat wandering under the light.
The next two lines depict the lives of people in the mountains. These two lines describe from the visual and auditory aspects, making the image in the poem more realistic and more vivid.
The last two lines: Let the spring flowers and grasses disappear, the autumn scenery before me is enough to make me linger for a long time.
After the rain, the empty mountains are so fresh and clean, and the people in the mountains are so comfortable, the poet felt that he had found a paradise, he could not help but express his feelings, and implicitly expressed his feelings of staying in the mountains and forests in the most vivid way.
This poem not only writes about the beauty of the mountains after the rain on an autumn evening, but also reveals the poet’s own pleasure in enjoying the scenery and his attachment to the mountain life.
Poem translator:
Kiang Kanghu
About the poet:
Wang Wei (王维), 701-761 A.D., was a native of Yuncheng, Shanxi Province. Wang Wei was a poet of landscape and idylls. His poems of landscape and idylls, with far-reaching images and mysterious meanings, were widely loved by readers in later generations, but Wang Wei never really became a man of landscape and idylls.
