Mountain Travel
Author: Du Mu
Far up the Hanshan Mountain, the stone path is sloping, and there are people living in the white clouds.
I park my car and sit in the maple forest at night, the leaves are as red as the flowers in February due to frost.
Translation
The rocky path is winding and sloping far up the mountain top.
There are a few families faintly visible where the white clouds sprout.
I stopped the carriage just because I loved the evening view of the maple forest.
The frost-stained maple leaves are better than the bright February flowers.
This is a seven-character quatrain that describes and praises the scenery of mountains and forests in late autumn.
The first sentence, "The stone path on the cold mountain in the distance is slanted", writes from bottom to top, a stone path winding towards the mountains full of autumn. The word "cold" points out the late autumn season; the word "yuan" expresses the longness of the mountain road; the word "slant" echoes the word "yuan" at the beginning of the sentence, describing the high and gentle mountains. Since the slope is not steep, you can travel around the mountain by car.
The second sentence, "There is a home deep in the white clouds," describes the distant scenery the poet saw when he was hiking in the mountains. The word "生" vividly expresses the various dynamics of white clouds rising, lingering and floating, and also indicates that the mountain is very high. The three words "someone's home" will make people think of the smoke curling from the kitchen, the crowing of chickens and the barking of dogs, thus making people feel that the mountains are full of life, without any fear of death. The word "someone's home" also refers to the "stone path" in the previous sentence, because this "stone path" is the passage for residents in the mountains.