Slow and reluctant, I have waited
Day after day, till now I must go.
How sweet the road-side flowers might be
If they did not mean good-bye, old friend.
The Lords of the Realm are harsh to us
And men of affairs are not our kind.
I will turn back home, I will say no more,
I will close the gate of my old garden.
Original Poem:
「留别王维」
孟浩然
寂寂竟何待， 朝朝空自归。
欲寻芳草去， 惜与故人违。
当路谁相假， 知音世所稀。
只应守寂寞， 还掩故园扉。
Interpretation:
This poem is Meng Haoran’s farewell to Wang Wei before he left Chang’an, and it still expresses the feelings of resentment and bitterness after he has encountered obstacles in his quest for a job.
In the first four lines, “What is there to live for in such loneliness and boredom? Every day I do nothing and return empty-handed. I want to go back to the mountains and forests to find fragrant flowers, but also cherish the friendship and do not want to break up with each other.
Meng Haoran used to compose poems in the Imperial College, but this time into Chang’an even returned without success, the poet’s heart is very melancholy. Write their own disillusionment, infinite sadness and resentment of the force through the paper. Since Chang’an is such an embarrassment, so the third and fourth lines say, it would be better to go back, and had to say goodbye to friends in despair.
The fifth and sixth lines: Nowadays, who in power is willing to promote my generation, and there are very few soulmates in the world. Perhaps this life is destined to be empty and lonely, or go home and close the door of my hometown.
This further explains that the reason for the lack of success lies in the fact that no one invokes it, and at the same time expresses his own feelings of cherishing the soulmate of Wang Wei. Since there is no hope of getting a job, it is meaningless for the poet to stay in the capital, so he is determined to return to his hometown and live in seclusion in the mountains and spend his life in solitude.
Throughout the poem, there are neither beautiful pictures nor gorgeous rhetoric, and the phrases are plain, so plain that they are almost colloquial.
Poem translator:
Kiang Kanghu
About the poet:
Meng Haoran (孟浩然), 689-740 AD, a native of Xiangyang, Hubei, was a famous poet of the Sheng Tang Dynasty. With the exception of one trip to the north when he was in his forties, when he was seeking fame in Chang’an and Luoyang, he spent most of his life in seclusion in his hometown of Lumenshan or roaming around.
