Mooring on the Jiande River
宿建德江
Sù Jiàndé jiāng
Also called A Night on the Jiande River.
Meng Haoran’s Jiande River quatrain in Chinese and English, with pinyin and notes on a traveler’s sorrow, the low sky, and a moon that seems close.
Read the poem
Read the original and its translation together. Open a line’s word meanings for a closer look.
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
- 移 yí move
- 舟 zhōu boat
- 泊 bó moor
- 煙 yān mist
- 渚 zhǔ islet
Word meanings — Line 2
- 日 rì day
- 暮 mù dusk
- 客 kè traveler
- 愁 chóu sorrow
- 新 xīn new
Word meanings — Line 3
- 野 yě country
- 曠 kuàng open
- 天 tiān sky
- 低 dī lower than
- 樹 shù trees
Word meanings — Line 4
- 江 jiāng river
- 清 qīng clear
- 月 yuè moon
- 近 jìn near
- 人 rén person
English translation by PoemWell.
Read the whole poem
Original
移舟泊煙渚，
日暮客愁新。
野曠天低樹，
江清月近人。
Translation
I bring the boat to rest by a misty islet.
Dusk makes a traveler's sorrow new.
Across the open country, the sky hangs below the trees;
in the clear river, the moon is close to me.
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?
移舟泊煙渚，
Pronunciation hint
bó
Reveal meaning and translation
泊 — moor
I bring the boat to rest by a misty islet.
-
Line 3 · What does the marked word mean?
野曠天低樹，
Pronunciation hint
tiān
Reveal meaning and translation
天 — sky
Across the open country, the sky hangs below the trees;
-
Line 4 · What does the marked word mean?
江清月近人。
Pronunciation hint
yuè
Reveal meaning and translation
月 — moon
in the clear river, the moon is close to me.
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.
Line-by-line notes →Self-check at your own pace. No score or progress is saved. Open only the answers you want included when printing.
Line-by-line notes
Lines 1–2 · A place to stop
移舟 is moving or repositioning the boat, and 泊 means to moor. 渚 is a small islet or shoal. The selected 煙 gives it a mist-like veil, while the source also records 幽渚, a secluded shoal. The title’s 宿 tells us that the pause is an overnight stay.
客 can be a guest, traveler, or sojourner, someone away from their own place. 客愁 names that person’s sorrow. 新 makes the sorrow feel renewed at dusk, just after the movement of the boat has ended. The homesickness shelf follows that condition of being away while the cause of the sorrow remains unstated.
Lines 3–4 · Wide and near
野曠 opens the view over the land, where the sky appears low beside the trees. 江清 changes the surface the reader looks toward. The English “in the clear river” takes the moon’s apparent nearness as an effect of reflection. The Chinese leaves “reflection” implicit.
Compare 低 and 近 in the same position in these two lines. One judges a height against trees, and the other judges a distance against a person. The last word 人 replaces the earlier 客 with a more general human presence. There is room to find comfort in that change of relation, even though the poem leaves the traveler’s sorrow open.
Form and tone
Four five-character lines make a jueju, with 新 and 人 in the even-line rhyme positions. The final pair balances 野 against 江, 曠 against 清, 天 against 月, and 低 against 近. Corresponding positions organize a change of scale.
An English translation has to add grammatical connections to these compact statements. Comparing it with the gloss reveals those choices. Pinyin is modern Mandarin; 泊 is bó, “moor.” No historical tone grid is supplied.
Historical context
Meng Haoran begins with a practical act on a journey and ends with a changed relation to the landscape. The title names the Jiande River; the poem provides no exact date or account of the journey's purpose.
Read Quiet Night Thought for a useful difference on the homesickness shelf. Li Bai names 故鄉, the hometown; Meng Haoran names the traveler's sorrow. Bamboo Grove gives the moon the verb “come,” while this poem ends with the relation “near.”
The English translation, gloss, and commentary here are original to PoemWell.
Read this poem alongside the contrasting selections in our homesickness reading guide.
Sources
《全唐詩》, juan 160, 宿建德江, checked against the individual text. We print 煙渚; the source records 幽渚 as a variant. 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
Meng Haoran. “Mooring on the Jiande River” (宿建德江). PoemWell. English translation by PoemWell. Updated .
https://poemwell.org/poems/mooring-on-the-jiande-river
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.