This sentence comes from "Drinking Horses in the Great Wall Grottoes", an unknown Yuefu poem from the Han Dynasty. The full text of the original poem is as follows:
The green grass by the river is long, thinking about the distant road. The far journey is inconceivable, I only dreamed about it in the past.
I dreamed of being next to me, and suddenly I felt that I was in a foreign country. They were in different places and counties, and never saw each other again and again.
The dry mulberry trees know the wind, and the sea water knows the cold weather. Everyone is charming at the beginning, but who is willing to talk to each other?
A guest came from afar and left me a pair of carps. Hu'er cooks carp, and there is a ruler in it.
Kneeling for a long time to read the plain book, what is it like in the book? The upper part adds meals, the lower part brings long memories.
Vernacular interpretation: The green spring grass by the river stretches endlessly into the distance, making me miss my husband who is traveling far away. You can't miss your husband who is far away in a foreign country all day long, but you can see him soon in your dreams. I saw him beside me in the dream, and when I woke up, I found that he was still in a foreign land. Each foreign country has different areas, and the husband cannot see her while wandering in a foreign country.
The withered mulberry tree knows that the wind has arrived, and the sea water also knows the taste of cold weather. The wanderers from my hometown are going home. My dear, who is willing to tell me the news about my husband? A visitor came from afar and gave me a carp-shaped wooden box containing a silk letter. He called his servant to open the wooden box, which contained a foot-long letter written on plain silk.
I respectfully read my husband’s letter written in plain silk. What does the letter say? The first part of the letter said that you should eat more to take care of your health, and the second part of the letter said that you miss her often.
Extended information
This poem describing the feeling of missing a wife is delicate, tactful, deep, touching and touching. The first eight lines of the poem start with "green grass", but as soon as I say "thinking about the distant road", I say "unthinkable", and we can only meet in dreams; but as soon as I talk about dreams, I suddenly feel that the dream is not real, and the dream is unreal. It’s still hard to see. It fully describes the lingering and pathos of missing a woman.
The following four sentences use metaphors to connect to the above text, which is surprising and further expresses the thoughts of the missing woman. But is it really possible to return home as mentioned in the poem? Not necessarily, it’s another dream-like description. The last eight sentences describe the plot of when the missing woman received a letter from home. It may be true, or it may be a fantasy produced when she misses her deeply. The author blends the two together to depict reality with fiction, making it difficult to distinguish between fiction and reality, making the whole story Poetry is more charming.
The poem goes from longing to receiving the letter, from pain and despair to surprise and excitement, and then to disappointment and calmness. The emotions do not fluctuate violently, but appear natural and not abrupt, embodying the heroine’s transformation from pain The mood ranges from despair to surprise and excitement to disappointment and calmness, expressing the misery of the heroine who is "alone" at home after being separated from her husband and her longing for her husband.