薛涛诗
Poems of Xue Tao
Index
乡思
Homesick
（用前韵）
(Using the previous rhyme)
|
峨嵋山下水如油 怜我心同不系舟 何日片帆离锦浦 棹声齐唱发中流 |
Below Emei Mountain, on a river like oil, feeling as I do, you let the boat run free. On whatever day you sail from these green shores, the chanting of the oarsmen will sound from midstream. |
-- 薛涛
废话
This is probably an answer poem, as indicated by Xue Tao's note on the rhyme scheme. This is kind of a naive note. So someone may be teaching her to write answer poems, which echo or transform the challenge poem, using the same rhyme scheme. Serious poets do this with regulated, eight-line verse. But Xue Tao almost exclusively uses the freer old-style four line verse. This would make the game easier.
All of this is not to say that Xue Tao is an average or mediocre poet. She is not a literary poet. And her vocabulary is often that of common usage. But in many poems she shows a much larger use of language. So she is a talented amateur. And China of her time, like England of the 18th C, held talented amateurs in high esteem.