At a Post Station
郵亭
Yóu Tíng
Dismounting beside fading flowers, Zhang Ji recognizes a repeated cost of military service: every flowering season finds him away from home.
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About the text and pronunciation
The simplified view changes character forms, not the edition. Notes and sources retain the cited text.
The Chinese source is shown in traditional characters by default, with a simplified view available. Pinyin is modern standard Mandarin, a reading aid, not Tang or Song pronunciation.
Word by word, in the order of the line. A gloss is a crib. It is not the translation.
Word meanings — Line 1
- 雲 yún clouds
- 淡 dàn thin
- 山 shān mountains
- 橫 héng stretch across
- 日 rì sun
- 欲 yù about to
- 斜 xié slant
Word meanings — Line 2
- 郵 yóu postal
- 亭 tíng station
- 下 xià dismount
- 馬 mǎ horse
- 對 duì face
- 殘 cán remaining
- 花 huā flowers
Word meanings — Line 3
- 自 zì since
- 從 cóng from
- 身 shēn self
- 逐 zhú follow
- 征 zhēng campaign
- 西 xī west
- 府 fǔ headquarters
Word meanings — Line 4
- 每 měi every
- 到 dào reach
- 開 kāi bloom
- 時 shí time
- 不 bú not
- 在 zài at
- 家 jiā home
English translation by PoemWell.
Read the whole poem
Original
雲淡山橫日欲斜，
郵亭下馬對殘花。
自從身逐征西府，
每到開時不在家。
Translation
Clouds thin, mountains stretch across the view, and the sun begins to slant.
At the post station I dismount before the last flowers.
Ever since I joined the headquarters campaigning west,
each season of flowering has found me away from home.
Try it from memory
After reading, recall the underlined word or phrase in each line. Say its meaning before opening the answer. These prompts use the text edition printed above.
-
Line 1 · What does the marked word mean?
雲淡山橫日欲斜，
Pronunciation hint
héng
Reveal meaning and translation
橫 — stretch across
Clouds thin, mountains stretch across the view, and the sun begins to slant.
-
Line 3 · What does the marked word mean?
自從身逐征西府，
Pronunciation hint
zhú
Reveal meaning and translation
逐 — follow
Ever since I joined the headquarters campaigning west,
-
Line 4 · What does the marked word mean?
每到開時不在家。
Pronunciation hint
shí
Reveal meaning and translation
時 — time
each season of flowering has found me away from home.
One more question: what changes?
Compare the opening and closing lines. What changes in the scene, the speaker’s attention, or the feeling? Choose a Chinese word as evidence, then compare your reading with the notes. More than one answer may be reasonable.
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Line-by-line notes
Lines 1–2 · A brief halt late in the day
雲淡 and 山橫 spread the view sideways before 日欲斜 lets it lean toward evening. 欲 catches the sun at the approach of that change. The rider then dismounts at a 郵亭, a station on the official travel and communications network. 對 puts the rider face to face with 殘花, flowers remaining after the main bloom. The stop comes late in the day and late in the flowers' season.
Lines 3–4 · A halt that recalls many absences
自從 opens a stretch of time running from the moment the speaker joined the western headquarters to the present. 征西府 gives the affiliation without identifying a commander. 每 makes a repeated experience out of what looked like a single scene. 開時 evokes flowering in season, and 不在家 says that this recurring time finds the speaker away. The last line gives the flowers at the station their significance by showing where the speaker wanted to see a bloom.
Form and tone
In this seven-character quatrain, a single arrival opens into repeated years of absence. The third line supplies the cause, and the fourth makes the present scene representative. Modern pinyin is provided; no historical level-and-oblique pattern is inferred from it.
Historical context
The title names a place designed for passage rather than settlement. Zhang Ji's speaker can stop his horse there but cannot turn the station into home. This is homesickness measured by missed seasons: the poem gives no battle scene, yet military employment shapes the loss.
Sources
Chinese text follows the main readings of Quan Tang shi, juan 242, Zhang Ji (張繼). 却 is normalized to 卻 where it occurs. Punctuation is editorial. English translations and annotations are original to PoemWell.
English translation, gloss, and notes by PoemWell. The translation is original to this site.
The Chinese source is shown in traditional characters by default, with a simplified view available. Pinyin is modern standard Mandarin, a reading aid, not Tang or Song pronunciation.
Updated .
Cite this reading
Zhang Ji. “At a Post Station” (郵亭). PoemWell. English translation by PoemWell. Updated .
https://poemwell.org/poems/at-a-post-station
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