On the Stork Tower

Lines 1–2 · Following two movements

白日 is the bright sun, and 依山 puts its disappearance against the mountains. 盡 brings that movement to a visible end. The river has the opposite kind of motion. 流 lets it run on, and 入海 takes its course all the way to the sea in the mind of the observer. The English “toward the sea” preserves that direction even though the whole course lies beyond a single view.

Lines 3–4 · A wish followed by an action

欲 names the wish to see farther. 窮 means to reach a limit, and 千里目 imagines the gaze reaching a thousand li. A precise measurement would miss the point of putting that large number beside 一層, one story. 更上 makes the response small and doable, “climb another level.” The Chinese leaves the climber unnamed. The English “your gaze” lets the reader share the wish and follow its practical consequence. The familiar maxim takes its force from what the climber has just seen.

Four five-character lines form a jueju. 流 and 樓 hold the even-line rhyme positions. The parallel first couplet gives way to a wish and the action that could fulfill it. Modern Mandarin pinyin is supplied; no historical tone grid is inferred from it.

The received attribution to Wang Zhihuan is retained with the collection's alternative attribution made visible. Read this landscape as an expanding view before treating the last couplet as a free-standing maxim. Compare Su Shi's Mount Lu poem, where changing position leads to a limit on knowledge, and Li Bai's waterfall, where distance enlarges imagination.