Most of Liu Zongyuan's landscape poems describe a relatively cold realm, in order to express his anguish and indignation of persecution and relegation. This poem depicts a fisherman fishing alone in a cold river, expressing the indomitable character of the poet Yongzhen despite his loneliness after the failure of innovation.
The first two sentences "There are no birds in a hundred mountains and no footprints in a thousand paths" describe the snow scene, while "Qian Shan" and "Wanjing" are all exaggerations. There must be birds in the mountains and people on the road; But "birds fly away" and "people disappear" The poet used the scene of birds traveling far away to render a desolate and lonely realm. Although the word "snow" is not used directly, readers seem to see the overwhelming snow and feel the biting cold. This is a reflection of the bad political environment at that time.
Three or four sentences "a boat, a bamboo cloak, an old man fishing in the cold river-snow" depict the image of a fisherman fishing alone in the cold river. In a place where there is heavy snow and almost no life, there is a lonely boat carrying a fisherman in hemp fiber and fishing alone on the snowy river. This fisherman's image is obviously a portrayal of the poet himself, which expresses the poet's lofty spirit of perseverance and integrity despite his loneliness after the failure of political reform.