As I walk in the cool of the autumn night,
Thinking of you, singing my poem,
I hear a mountain pine-cone fall...
You also seem to be awake.
Original Poem:
「秋夜寄邱员外」
韦应物
怀君属秋夜， 散步咏凉天。
空山松子落， 幽人应未眠。
Interpretation:
This poem is a gift of nostalgia for a friend triggered by the poet on an autumn night. The poem expresses the poet’s concern for the life of his friend Qiu Dan, who lives in the mountains, and imagines that Qiu Dan will miss the poet himself at this time, thus expressing the sincere friendship.
The first and second lines are written about the poet’s feeling of wistfulness when he walks on an autumn night. Autumn night, the climate has been nearly cool, the moonlight is exceptionally bright, the sky is exceptionally far away. This distant sky will cause the poet’s thoughts to soar, leading to infinite reverie, which is also the best time to remember friends.
The third and fourth lines, I think this time far away Qiu Dan empty mountain sleepless, but also must be in nostalgia for the poet himself. In the autumn night, the mountains must be silent, only the sound of pine nuts falling to the ground breaks the quiet, Qiu Dan who lives a hermit life in the mountains must like this quiet autumn night, and wanders alone under the pines. Through the poet’s imagination, it shows the sincere friendship between friends.
In this poem, the poet uses a combination of realism and fiction to present different spaces at the same time, juxtaposing the scene in front of him with the scene in his mind, and connecting the person who remembers him with the person he remembers in a different place, thus expressing the deep feelings of love between two places.
Poem translator:
Kiang Kanghu
About the poet:
Wei Yingwu (韦应物), circa 737 – 786, was a native of Chang’an, Beijing. His poems were collected in the Wei Suzhou Collection, which included poems concerned with the plight of the people, expressions of disobedience to the times and indignation against the world, and descriptions of idyllic landscapes, etc., of which the ones describing idyllic landscapes are the most famous, and have been sung by posterity in particular.
