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Farewell Poems

送別

Tang farewell poems before, during, and after departure: an offered cup, a song from shore, a vanishing sail, and the question of a friend’s return.

The verb 送 in a poem title often means to accompany someone part of the way or to see them off. A farewell poem can mark that social act without reporting every mile of the journey. The person who leaves and the person who watches do not have the same view.

These complete readings follow a farewell from an offered cup to the uncertainty after a friend has gone. Each offers the Chinese text, pinyin, a gloss, an original English translation, and notes.

Before departure: one more cup

In Sending Yuan Er to Anxi, Wang Wei begins with rain settling the road dust and fresh willow green beside an inn. The friend has not yet disappeared. The poet can still speak to him.

The third line offers another cup. The fourth explains why: beyond Yang Pass, the old circle of friends will be absent. The cup cannot cancel the journey, but it can hold the present moment for one more action.

Compare Bai Juyi’s question to Liu Nineteen, where a cup invites someone to arrive. The objects are similar; the direction of the social movement is reversed.

After departure: keep watching

Yellow Crane Tower Farewell has no direct speech to the departing friend. Li Bai names the season and destination, follows the sail, and ends with the Yangzi still flowing after the sail is gone.

The friend is Meng Haoran, himself a poet. “Lone sail” tells us what the watcher follows; it need not mean there is only one vessel on the river. Attention makes one boat stand out from the whole view.

Our text follows the reading with 碧山, blue-green mountains. The familiar 碧空, blue sky, is a recorded variant explained on the poem page. In either reading, disappearance leads the eye toward what remains.

A landscape becomes a farewell

Grass on the Ancient Plain, by Bai Juyi, saves the act of seeing someone off until its seventh line. The first half follows the grass through withering, fire, and renewed growth. The second half brings in a road, a deserted town, and the traveler.

The last line returns to the abundance of the opening. Now that abundance is filled with parting. Reading only the famous first four lines leaves out the farewell promised by the title.

This poem is an eight-line lüshi; the other farewells gathered here are four-line jueju. A shared subject does not imply the same formal work.

From the departing boat

In To Wang Lun, Li Bai is the traveler himself. A stamping song reaches him from shore before the boat leaves. He answers it by making the feeling of the farewell deeper than Peach Blossom Pool. Compare this audible interruption with the visual attention of Yellow Crane Tower Farewell: exchanging the positions of traveler and watcher changes the poem’s material.

After the gate closes

Farewell in the Mountains begins when the actual seeing-off is finished. Wang Wei closes a brushwood gate and asks whether his friend will return when next year’s grass is green. The grass’s return is certain; the person’s is a question. Read it beside Bai Juyi’s grass poem to hear an older plant-and-traveler association become two different endings.

Read the gesture, then the history

A cup, a long look, a song, and a closed gate are different ways to end a meeting. None needs an invented promise that the friends will never meet again. When a title identifies a mission or a destination, use that information; when it gives no date, leave the date open.

Homesickness often begins from the traveler’s side, after the separation has happened. Love and longing includes a different kind of reciprocal absence. Moving between those shelves is more useful than treating every departure as the same emotion.

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Poems in this hub

Bai Juyi Grass on the Ancient Plain 賦得古原草送別 Read all eight lines of Bai Juyi’s grass poem, including its farewell ending, with Chinese, pinyin, a gloss, original English translation, and notes. Wang Wei Sending Yuan Er to Anxi 送元二使安西 Wang Wei’s farewell to Yuan Er, with Chinese text, pinyin, and English notes on the last cup, fresh willows, Yang Pass, and the prospect of leaving old friends. Li Bai Yellow Crane Tower Farewell 黃鶴樓送孟浩然之廣陵 Li Bai sees Meng Haoran off toward Yangzhou: Chinese text, pinyin, gloss, original English translation, and notes on the disappearing sail and text variants. Li Bai To Wang Lun 贈汪倫 Li Bai’s To Wang Lun in Chinese, pinyin, and English: how a song from the shore interrupts departure and the depth of Peach Blossom Pool measures friendship. Wang Wei Farewell in the Mountains 山中送別 Wang Wei closes a gate after a friend leaves, then asks about next spring. Chinese, pinyin, word gloss, original translation, and notes on the final question. Bai Juyi Parting at the Southern Bank 南浦別 An autumn farewell ends with a painful request: go safely, but do not turn back again. Read the original Chinese with pinyin, word meanings, an original English translation, and notes. Chen Zi’ang Seeing Wei Da Off to Military Service 送魏大從軍 A farewell urges a departing friend to measure himself against the remembered achievements of earlier warriors. Read the original Chinese with pinyin, word meanings, an original English translation, and notes. Luo Binwang A Farewell by the Yi River 於易水送人 A present farewell recalls Jing Ke’s departure; the people are gone, but the river remains cold. Read the original Chinese with pinyin, word meanings, an original English translation, and notes. Li Bai Leaving White Emperor City at Dawn 早發白帝城 Li Bai’s White Emperor City departure, with pinyin and English notes on the return to Jiangling, continuing gibbon cries, swift passage, and textual variants. Wang Zhihuan Willows at a Farewell 送別 Willow branches along an imperial waterway reveal repeated departures in Wang Zhihuan’s twenty-character farewell. Li Bai Laolao Pavilion 勞勞亭 Spring itself seems reluctant to supply willow branches for another farewell. Read the Chinese, pinyin, word meanings, and original English translation. Li Bai Song of the Moon over Mount Emei 峨眉山月歌 Moonlight and place-names accompany a journey downstream from the Emei region. Read the Chinese, pinyin, word meanings, and original English translation. Wang Zhihuan A Song at the Farewell Feast 宴詞 A river boat’s departing rhythm meets an impossible plea about shallow water in Wang Zhihuan’s banquet quatrain. Wang Zhihuan A Farewell on the Ninth Day 九日送別 A Double Ninth gathering shares chrysanthemum wine before tomorrow’s separation in Wang Zhihuan’s autumn farewell. Zhang Xu Keeping a Guest in the Mountains 山行留客 Zhang Xu answers a guest’s fear of rain with a playful reason to remain in the spring mountains. Meng Haoran Taking Leave of Wang Wei 留別王侍御維 A disappointed visitor turns toward home while regretting the loss of a rare understanding friend. Read the Chinese, pinyin, word meanings, and original English translation. Liu Zongyuan Parting from My Younger Brother Zongyi 別舍弟宗一 Two brothers separate after years of displacement. Follow the immense distances, southern rivers, and imagined dreams that give their farewell its weight. Wang Changling Farewell at Hibiscus Tower: A Heart of Ice 芙蓉樓送辛漸二首（其一） Wang Changling’s Hibiscus Tower farewell in Chinese and English, with pinyin and notes on the dawn departure, a message to Luoyang, and the heart of ice in jade. Wang Changling Farewell at Hibiscus Tower: The River at Night 芙蓉樓送辛漸二首（其二） Clouds surround Danyang, and wine cannot dissolve a farewell in the second of Wang Changling’s Hibiscus Tower quatrains. Wang Wei A Farewell: Returning to the Mountains 送別 A parting drink and a few questions give way to the endless clouds of a chosen retreat. Read the Chinese, pinyin, word meanings, and original English translation. Wen Tingyun Crossing the Watershed 過分水嶺 A stream has accompanied a traveler for three days through the mountains. Read how its sound through the night becomes a voice at their parting. Wei Yingwu On an Autumn Night, Sent to Qiu 秋夜寄邱員外 A solitary autumn walk becomes an imagined visit to a distant friend. Read how falling pinecones connect two unseen people through one quiet night. Cen Shen Sending Liu West from Wuwei 武威送劉判官赴磧西行軍 Heat, a swift horse, and a horn sounding into dawn give Cen Shen’s farewell to Adjutant Liu its compressed military energy. Cen Shen Sending Cui Back to the Capital 送崔子還京 Cen Shen watches a lone rider return east from the frontier and writes his farewell in September snow.