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Homesickness

思鄉

Read homesickness and separation in Li Bai, Du Fu, and Meng Haoran, comparing a named home, a missing letter, and a traveler’s sorrow at dusk.

Homesickness in these poems has a direction. Someone looks toward a place or a person beyond the immediate scene. The poem may name the destination, or it may leave the reader with the act of looking.

A hometown left unnamed

Quiet Night Thought does it in four lines: moonlight, a mistaken impression of frost, the head raised, the head lowered, 故鄉, the old home. Li Bai does not name the town. The English translation can leave it unnamed too.

The moon gives the movement a visible hinge. Looking up brings the speaker toward something far above; looking down brings thought toward home. The poem does not explain how long the journey has lasted or whether return is possible. Its brevity keeps those questions open.

A letter made precious by distance

Spring View puts separation inside a war. Du Fu is in Chang’an in 757, apart from his family. Three months of beacon fires are balanced against a family letter worth a fortune. The line measures the value of news when distance and fighting make ordinary contact difficult.

恨別 names grief at parting. The poem also holds a damaged capital, spring vegetation, and the speaker’s thinning hair. Homesickness is one pressure among several. Its eight-line lüshi form gives those pressures room to answer one another in couplets.

A traveler whose home is not named

Mooring on the Jiande River, by Meng Haoran, gives us 客愁, the sorrow of someone away. Dusk renews it. The closing landscape brings the moon near, but does not explicitly send thought toward a hometown or promise that the sorrow is gone.

That difference matters when grouping poems by theme. Quiet Night Thought names 故鄉; this river poem names a traveler’s condition. They can illuminate each other without receiving an identical paraphrase. Try reading their final lines side by side: one turns inward toward home, while the other remains with a visible nearness.

Before and after the goodbye

Farewell poems stand beside these readings because they show the moment before absence becomes a condition. In Sending Yuan Er to Anxi, a friend is still close enough to accept another cup. In Yellow Crane Tower Farewell, the boat has left, but its sail can still be followed.

The watching person in those poems stays behind. The homesick speaker looks back from elsewhere. Read them together and notice whose position supplies the scene: the traveler, the host, or the person waiting.

Other ways of being apart

Su Shi’s Shui Diao Ge Tou wishes for long life across a thousand miles, with his brother named in the preface. Li Qingzhao’s Yi Jian Mei imagines one longing shared across two places. These Song lyrics widen the comparison from a lost proximity to home into family attachment and love.

The shared distance does not make the relationships identical. Begin with the words for home, friend, letter, or kin, and let the particular poem establish what is missing.

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Poems in this hub

Li Bai Quiet Night Thought 靜夜思 Li Bai’s four-line night poem, with the traditional text, Mandarin pinyin, a word-by-word gloss, and an English translation written for PoemWell. Du Fu Spring View 春望 Du Fu’s Spring View, written in occupied Chang’an in 757: a regulated eight-line poem of a broken capital, with gloss, tone notes, and an original translation. Meng Haoran Mooring on the Jiande River 宿建德江 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. He Zhizhang Returning Home: I 回鄉偶書二首（其一） A returning traveler keeps his home accent, but a new generation recognizes him only as a visitor. Read the original Chinese with pinyin, word meanings, an original English translation, and notes. Wang Zhihuan Liangzhou Song: Beyond the Pass 涼州詞二首（其一） A remote city, a flute tune, and spring stopped at Jade Gate Pass shape the first of Wang Zhihuan’s two Liangzhou songs. Wang Han Liangzhou Song: Remembering Chang’an 涼州詞二首（其二） Flowers should already be fading near the capital, while a frontier listener remains in cold sand and hears a willow tune. Wang Han Spring Thoughts of Home 春日歸思 Spring blossoms make Wang Han’s traveler imagine singing women and boats on Ruoye Stream, with glosses and notes on the final question. Meng Haoran A Night on the Tonglu River, Sent to Old Friends 宿桐廬江寄廣陵舊遊 River sounds surround a solitary boat while the traveler sends his thoughts toward old companions in Guangling. Read the Chinese, pinyin, word meanings, and original English translation. Liu Zongyuan Viewing Mountains with the Monk Haochu 與浩初上人同看山寄京華親故 Sharp coastal mountains bring thoughts of distant home. Read the startling wish to turn one body into many figures watching from separate peaks. Liu Zongyuan Banyan Leaves Fall in Liuzhou 柳州二月榕葉落盡偶題 Spring in Liuzhou brings falling leaves instead of familiar renewal. Explore how an unexpected local season deepens the speaker's unsettled feeling. 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 Wan Mooring below North Solid Hill 次北固山下 Wang Wan’s boat reaches a river landscape where daylight and spring arrive before night and the old year have quite ended. Meng Haoran Thoughts on the River in Early Cold 早寒江上有懷 Falling leaves and migrating geese sharpen a traveler’s longing, but the river crossing remains uncertain. Read the Chinese, pinyin, word meanings, and original English translation. Du Fu Remembering My Brothers on a Moonlit Night 月夜憶舍弟 A military night closes the roads while the speaker has no reliable news of his scattered brothers. Read the Chinese, pinyin, word meanings, and original English translation. Du Fu Climbing High 登高 An immense autumn river view is set against illness, age, and the narrowing life of a traveler. Read the Chinese, pinyin, word meanings, and original English translation. Du Fu Climbing Yueyang Tower 登岳陽樓 A long-imagined view of Dongting Lake opens onto immense water and unresolved human distress. Read the Chinese, pinyin, word meanings, and original English translation. Du Fu News That the Imperial Army Has Recovered the North 聞官軍收河南河北 News of military recovery turns tears into a rush of plans for the journey home. Read the Chinese, pinyin, word meanings, and original English translation. Wang Changling Beyond the Frontier: The Old Pass 出塞二首（其一） Qin moonlight and a Han pass compress centuries of unfinished return in Wang Changling’s frontier quatrain. Li Shangyin Night Rain: Sent North 夜雨寄北 Li Shangyin’s Night Rain Sent North, with Chinese text, pinyin, and English notes tracing return-date uncertainty into a hoped-for candlelit conversation. Wang Changling Army Song: The Watchtower at Dusk 從軍行七首（其一） A dusk climb and a familiar flute tune connect a frontier watchtower to a distant woman's chamber in Wang Changling’s first army song. Wen Tingyun Early Departure from Shang Mountain 商山早行 A traveler leaves an inn before sunrise. Read the famous sequence of rooster, moon, footprints, and frost, then follow its turn toward a dream of home. Wang Wei Remembering My Brothers on the Double Ninth 九月九日憶山東兄弟 Wang Wei’s Double Ninth poem in Chinese, pinyin, and English: an imagined family gathering turns the distant speaker into the person missing from the group. Cen Shen Meeting a Messenger Bound for the Capital 逢入京使 A chance meeting on horseback lets Cen Shen send home a spoken reassurance when no paper or brush is available.