While my little boat moves on its mooring of mist,
And daylight wanes, old memories begin...
How wide the world was, how close the trees to heaven,
And how clear in the water the nearness of the moon!
Original Poem
「宿建德江」
孟浩然
移舟泊烟渚， 日暮客愁新。
野旷天低树， 江清月近人。
Interpretation
Composed during Meng Haoran's autumnal journey when mooring overnight at Jiande River, this poem captures the profound melancholy of a wandering scholar whose talents remain unrecognized. As dusk descends on the riverscape, the poet transforms fleeting moments into timeless lyrical art.
First Couplet: "移舟泊烟渚，日暮客愁新。"
Yí zhōu bó yān zhǔ, rì mù kè chóu xīn.
My boat drifts to mist-veiled sandbar; dusk deepens the traveler's fresh sorrow.
The opening juxtaposes physical movement ("drifting boat") with emotional stasis ("deepening sorrow"), where the misty islet becomes a metaphor for life's uncertain course. The character 新 (new) suggests sorrow's perpetual renewal in displacement.
Second Couplet: "野旷天低树，江清月近人。"
Yě kuàng tiān dī shù, jiāng qīng yuè jìn rén.
Wilderness stretches - sky stoops to trees; river clears - moon draws near.
These optical illusions masterfully externalize inner solitude - the vastness compressing heaven and earth while the intimate moon offers solitary companionship. The crystalline river reflects both the moon's clarity and the poet's unclouded perception.
Holistic Appreciation
In twenty concise characters, the poem constructs a cosmic diptych of human transience and natural permanence. The first couplet's horizontal movement (boat to shore) shifts to vertical dimensions in the second (lowering sky, rising moon), creating a spatial matrix where the poet's miniature figure appears simultaneously dwarfed by nature and comforted by celestial proximity. The "clear river" becomes a mirror of consciousness itself - undisturbed by worldly turbidity.
Artistic Merits
- Perspectival genius: Manipulates spatial perception to mirror psychological states
- Temporal layering: Captures the ephemeral (dusk) and eternal (moon) in one glance
- Hydrospheric unity: River functions as both setting and cognitive metaphor
- Emotional restraint: Conveys profound solitude through understated natural observation
Insights
This riverine miniature teaches how solitude can become luminous when embraced fully. Meng demonstrates that our deepest melancholy often reveals life's purest perceptions - the lowering sky and approaching moon symbolize how existential smallness and spiritual consolation are two sides of the same coin. The poem suggests that true clarity emerges not from avoiding life's mists, but from seeing through them to the essential companionship of the universe itself.
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.
