There's a harp in the midnight playing clear,
While the west wind rustles a green vine;
There's a low cloud touching the jade-white dew
And an early wildgoose in the River of Stars…
Night in the tall trees clings to dawn;
Light makes folds in the distant hills;
And here on the Huai, by one falling leaf,
I can feel a storm on Lake Tung-t'ing.
Original Poem:
「早秋」
许浑
遥夜泛清瑟，西风生翠萝。
残萤栖玉露，早雁拂金河。
高树晓还密，远山晴更多。
淮南一叶下，自觉洞庭波。
Interpretation:
Early Autumn” was written when the poet was living in the late Tang Dynasty, in the poet’s nostalgia for the past and the present, travelling in the bitter sadness, not the first to be down and out, living in idleness in the life of the sadness of the bitter autumn chants conveyed sadness, can be seen everywhere.
The first line, “The distant night is full of clear sound, and the west wind gives birth to cui luo” means: the night is long, the night is deep, and there are gusts of bleak and clear sound, and the autumn wind is blowing the withered vines, and there is a sound of sound. This is a sad and emotional autumn night, the sad autumn emotions are seen in this bleak and cold environment.
Jaw “residual fluorescent perched on the jade dew, early geese whisk golden river”, seize the distinctive seasonal features of the scenery to write, autumn winds and cool weather, the fluorescent in the white dew, seems to be looking for a place to stay; night flying geese seem to know that autumn has come, swept through the Milky Way, to the south and go.
If the first two lines of sadness and sadness of autumn is too strong, then the neck line “tall trees are still dense, far away from the sunny mountains more” is to give a kind of relief. Since it is early autumn, the tall trees in the mist have not yet withered, and under the bright sunlight, the distant mountains are visible, which seems to be much more than usual. Although this couplet cannot be compared with Liu Yuxi’s “A crane in the clear sky pushes up the clouds, and then leads the poetic feelings to the blue sky”, it does add a touch of brightness to the poem.
The last line, “A leaf from Huainan, conscious of the waves in Dongting”, expresses the feelings of the heart, writing that the waves rise with the dawn breeze, complementing the early autumn, and then appearing to be refreshed and full of energy.
Xu Hun is a famous poet in the late Tang Dynasty who wrote about wistfulness and landscapes. As far as his landscape poems are concerned, he writes broad landscapes, deep thoughts and sincere feelings, so his scenery, feelings and reasoning are integrated into the poetic mood.
About the poet:
Xu Hun (date of birth and death unknown), a native of Jiangsu Province. He was a scholar in the sixth year of the reign of Emperor Wenzong Daho, and served successively as a magistrate of Dangtu and Taiping, but was exempted due to illness. Later, he was appointed as the Secretary of Runzhou. Dazhong years into the supervision of the imperial censor, due to illness, begged to return, and then returned to the civil service, served as the Ministry of Yu, transferred to the Mutual, Ying two state assassins. In his later years, he returned to the village of Danyangqiao to live in idleness, and compiled his own collection of poems, which he called “Dingmao Collection”. His poems are all close to the style, five or seven rhymes, especially more, the syntax is rounded and stable, the tone of the level and oblique self-contained pattern, that is, the so-called “Ding Mao style”. His poems were mostly about “water”, hence the irony of “Xu Hun’s Thousand Wet Poems”.
