孟郊诗
Poems of Meng Jiao
Index
离思
The One I Left
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不寐亦不语 片月秋稍举 孤鸿忆霜群 独鹤叫云侣 |
I don't sleep. I don't speak. Slice of moon enters autumn's sky. Lone goose remembering his frosted flock. Lone heron begging the clouds for a companion. |
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怨彼浮花心 飘飘无定所 高张系繂帆 远过梅根渚 |
I resent the one with the fickle heart. So I've floated about with no resting place. High and wide I spread my sails and Traveled to the isle where plum trees grow. |
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回织别离字 机声有酸楚 |
But I'm bound to return to these parting poems And the sound they make is my misery. |
-- 孟郊
废话
The willow-branchless woman. Again. Rumi wrote that every time two humans make love a child is born and that you are never rid of that child. I'm sure Meng Jiao would agree with him. But this is a very mature poem. And in it, traveling is in the past tense. As a guess, this poem comes after passing his exams but before he meets his second wife. I say before meeting her because his longing is for a companion. And it could be that the willow-branchless woman seemed an even better companion than his first wife. So she remains his primary longing until a companion is found.