First crickets sing and cease in autumn’s breath;
The dim lamp fades, then flares from dark to light.
Beyond the window, I know rain descends through the night —
On banana leaves, it whispers first of death.
Original Poem
「夜雨」
白居易
早蛩啼复歇，残灯灭又明。
隔窗知夜雨，芭蕉先有声。
Interpretation
Based on the poem’s secluded mood and its exquisite observation of objects, it likely belongs to Bai Juyi’s middle or later years, a period when his state of mind turned more introspective and his poetic craft reached a state of flawless mastery. It may be connected to an experience during his postings to Jiangzhou or Zhongzhou, or perhaps to his later years of leisure in Luoyang. This poem does not merely depict a rainy night; with extremely spare brushstrokes, it presents the complete process of how a sensitive auditory world gradually perceives and confirms the arrival of a night rain amidst silence. It portrays not the form of the rain, but the instant the rain’s "acoustic message" is captured by the heart—a superb miniature on the themes of a quiet night, perception, and nature’s secret language.
First Couplet: 早蛩啼复歇，残灯灭又明。
Zǎo qióng tí fù xiē, cán dēng miè yòu míng.
The early crickets start their chirr, then suddenly are still; / The guttering lamp-flame dies right down, then flares against its will.
Explication: The opening enters through subtle fluctuations in hearing and sight, creating a sense of nocturnal stillness and unease. "Early crickets" indicates the season is deep autumn, their sound inherently plaintive. The intermittent rhythm of "start their chirr, then suddenly are still" breaks the absolute silence of the night, also hinting that atmospheric pressure or humidity might be undergoing subtle change. "The guttering lamp-flame dies right down, then flares" provides an indoor perspective, depicting the struggling, flaring image of a lamp as its oil nears exhaustion. This brief pause and repetition in "then suddenly are still" and "then flares" together create an atmosphere of suspenseful waiting. Neither sound nor light is stable, as if the tiny lives both in nature and within the room are foretelling something.
Second Couplet: 隔窗知夜雨，芭蕉先有声。
Gé chuāng zhī yè yǔ, bājiāo xiān yǒu shēng.
Outside my window, now I know the night rain starts to fall: / The plantain leaves are first of all to catch and spread the call.
Explication: This couplet is the heart of the poem. It reveals the answer to all the subtle portents in the preceding lines and completes a marvelous feat of deduction and sensory experience. "Outside my window, now I know the night rain starts to fall" is the conclusion, yet the poet does not directly describe the sound of rain striking the roof or ground. Instead, with singular originality, he writes "The plantain leaves are first of all to catch and spread the call." The brilliance here lies in: First, it highlights the sequence and medium of perception. The poet does not hear the rain directly but infers it indirectly through the plantain leaves’ unique resonance ("first… to catch and spread the call"). Plantain leaves are broad and expansive, extremely sensitive to raindrops; their sound is clear and resonant, making them the most prominent "amplifier" on a rainy night. Second, it suggests the poet’s living environment and aesthetic inclination. Planting plantains by the window is a literati’s refined taste, which here becomes the most sensitive "rain detector." Third, it creates a psychological moment from "suspicion" to "knowing." The crickets’ stillness and the lamp’s flicker in the first couplet were puzzling signs; the sound of the plantain leaves here is the conclusive evidence. Linked together, it is a vivid process of the mind deciphering nature’s code from subtle clues. The word "first" indicates both the plantain’s swift response and the poet’s sudden realization after waiting and confirming.
Holistic Appreciation
This pentasyllabic quatrain is a "detective poem" that constructs its world through sound. The poem’s structure follows a clear logic of "portent—confirmation." The first two lines list two anomalous but unexplained phenomena (crickets unusually starting and stopping, the lamp unusually dying and flaring), akin to a detective discovering clues. The last two lines reveal the connection between the clues and deliver the final answer (it turns out the approaching night rain affected the insects and the air, and the rain’s own sound is "betrayed" by the plantains). The four lines complete a full cycle of perception. The poet acts as a silent observer secluded indoors, using his highly acute senses and serene mood to capture and interpret the subtle messages transmitted by all things in the night. Not a line expresses emotion directly, yet the poet’s leisurely delight and quiet fascination—his communion with nature’s whispers in solitude and his subtle stirring of heart—permeate the spaces between the words.
Artistic Merits
- A Narrative Art Focused on Sound: The entire poem uses sound as its main thread. The intermittent cricket song is the prelude; the sputtering of the lamp-wick (which can be considered a faint sound) is the interlude; the sound of rain on plantain leaves is the main theme and the answer. Through this linking of sounds, it builds a world of a rainy night that, though separated by windows and doors, feels vivid and tangible.
- Typicality and Interrelation in the Choice of Details: Both "early crickets" and "plantain leaves" are typical images of an autumn garden—one animal, one plant—both serving the theme of "night rain." The anomaly in the crickets’ song hints at a change in weather (increased humidity before rain may affect their chirping), while the plantain sound directly reports the rain’s arrival. An internal, natural logic connects the details.
- The Unique Charm of the "Outside my window" Perspective: The poet never steps outside; all perception occurs through the medium of the "window." This intensifies the secluded and immersive quality of the poetic scene and highlights the indirect nature of "hearing" and "knowing," making the final "knowing" feel more like a private, intelligent insight rather than a straightforward announcement.
- Extreme Economy of Language and Its Resulting Tension: Not a word among the twenty is superfluous. Verbs like "start," "are still," "dies," "flares," "know," and "catch" accurately record the dynamic process. Adverbs like "then suddenly," "then," and "first" meticulously depict the rhythm of time and the sequence of cause and effect. The more concise the language, the stronger the sense of suspense it creates and the poetic tension upon the final revelation.
Insights
This work demonstrates how Bai Juyi uncovers profound poetry and philosophy within the most ordinary life scenes. It reveals that truly poetic perception often lies not in seeking out spectacular wonders, but in maintaining sustained focus and a sensitive interpretive capacity towards the subtlest changes in one’s immediate environment. The poet’s dialogue with the world is conducted by listening to the cricket’s silence, gazing at the lamp-flame’s struggle, and discerning the plantain’s whisper.
In an age where our senses are often drowned by electronic media, this poem acts as a tonic for clarity. It invites us to quiet some of the external noise, to retrain our hearing and intuition, to listen again to those "whispers" of the natural world—the wind, insect sounds, rain on leaves. It tells us that a rich and peaceful mind can be attained on a rainy night, through just a window, a lamp, a cluster of plantains. The pleasure of deducing a natural truth from subtle signs is an ancient and precious intellectual joy. Through this small poem, Bai Juyi reminds us to slow down, to connect with all things in silence, and to return life to its original state—a condition of keen sensitivity full of discovery.
About the Poet
Bai Juyi (白居易), 772 - 846 AD, was originally from Taiyuan, then moved to Weinan in Shaanxi. Bai Juyi was the most prolific poet of the Tang Dynasty, with poems in the categories of satirical oracles, idleness, sentimentality, and miscellaneous rhythms, and the most influential poet after Li Bai Du Fu.
