From Alfalfa Peak to My Family
題苜蓿峰寄家人
Tí Mùxu fēng jì jiārén
The Beginning of Spring arrives on the frontier, but Cen Shen’s message home is shaped by tears and what the family cannot see.
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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
- 苜 mù alfalfa
- 蓿 xu alfalfa
- 峰 fēng peak
- 邊 biān beside
- 逢 féng meet
- 立 lì Beginning
- 春 chūn Spring
Word meanings — Line 2
- 胡 hú Hu
- 蘆 lú lu
- 河 hé River
- 上 shàng by
- 淚 lèi tears
- 沾 zhān wet
- 巾 jīn cloth
Word meanings — Line 3
- 閨 guī chamber
- 中 zhōng within
- 只 zhǐ only
- 是 shì is
- 空 kōng vainly
- 相 xiāng mutually
- 憶 yì remember
Word meanings — Line 4
- 不 bú not
- 見 jiàn see
- 沙 shā sand
- 場 chǎng field
- 愁 chóu sorrow
- 殺 shā overwhelms
- 人 rén people
English translation by PoemWell.
Read the whole poem
Original
苜蓿峰邊逢立春，
胡蘆河上淚沾巾。
閨中只是空相憶，
不見沙場愁殺人。
Translation
Beside Alfalfa Peak I meet the Beginning of Spring;
by the Hulu River, tears wet my cloth.
At home you can only long for me in vain,
unable to see the battlefield's crushing sorrow.
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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?
苜蓿峰邊逢立春，
Pronunciation hint
biān
Reveal meaning and translation
邊 — beside
Beside Alfalfa Peak I meet the Beginning of Spring;
-
Line 3 · What does the marked word mean?
閨中只是空相憶，
Pronunciation hint
shì
Reveal meaning and translation
是 — is
At home you can only long for me in vain,
-
Line 4 · What does the marked word mean?
不見沙場愁殺人。
Pronunciation hint
chǎng
Reveal meaning and translation
場 — field
unable to see the battlefield's crushing sorrow.
One more question: what changes?
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Line-by-line notes
Lines 1–2: spring reached in a distant place
苜蓿峰 and 胡蘆河 are place names. 逢立春 means encountering the calendar’s Beginning of Spring, a solar term. The second line repeats the location pattern, this time with tears wetting a cloth. The English “meet” preserves the force of reaching a particular day while away from home.
Lines 3–4: what the family cannot see
閨中 brings the poem into the inner room in the speaker’s imagination. 空相憶 allows family members to think longingly of him while showing how little that longing can change. In the English “you,” the poem addresses them directly. 不見 marks the limit of their view, and 愁殺人 makes battlefield sorrow painfully strong. The letter’s final words try to convey something that shared remembrance alone cannot show.
Form and tone
The seven-character jueju rhymes 春, 巾, and 人. Its first pair records the speaker's location and tears; its second imagines the limited view at home. Modern pinyin is supplied, with 不見 read bú jiàn; no historical tone grid is invented.
Historical context
Cen Shen makes homesickness reciprocal but unequal: the people apart cannot see the same conditions. Compare the deliberately reassuring message in Meeting a Messenger Bound for the Capital, and the distant garden imagined during The Ninth Day on Campaign. Each message chooses what absence can know.
Sources
《全唐詩》, juan 201, Cen Shen; the Wikisource transcription's main reading is followed. Punctuation is editorial.
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
Cen Shen. “From Alfalfa Peak to My Family” (題苜蓿峰寄家人). PoemWell. English translation by PoemWell. Updated .
https://poemwell.org/poems/from-alfalfa-peak-to-my-family
Credit the poet for the Chinese original and PoemWell for this translation and commentary. Use the permanent page link above; source editions are listed separately.