Don’t wait until late in the flowering year for the mulberry trees to be filled with elm trees, as the sky will still be filled with rosy clouds: Don’t talk about old age or when the sun shines on the mulberry elm trees until it’s almost evening, but the afterglow of the rays will still fill the sky with red.
This sentence comes from Liu Yuxi's "Rewarding Lotte and Yong Old Advice". At that time, the sixty-four-year-old Liu Yuxi was assigned to Luoyang, the eastern capital, as a guest of the prince; at this time, his contemporary Bai Juyi used the same I have been living in Luoyang for three years. Finally getting together, each other was very happy. However, Bai Juyi expressed a negative and pessimistic mood about aging in his poem "Ode to the Elderly and Gifts of Dreams" written to Liu Yuxi, and Liu Yuxi wrote this poem.
Poetry Appreciation
The whole poem expresses Liu Yuxi’s sober and optimistic understanding of the issues of life and death, indicating that he can actively treat life with a materialistic attitude under any circumstances. The two sentences "More than the night of mulberry trees, the sky is full of clouds" are deeply appreciated by people and have become famous sentences that have been passed down through the ages.
The last two sentences are the finishing touch of the whole poem and have a beautiful artistic conception. The momentum is bold and unrestrained, and it is similar to Cao Cao's "old man who is in trouble and has an ambition for a thousand miles. A martyr is still ambitious in his old age". When facing aging, the poet should not be negative or pessimistic, but should spend his lifetime spreading red clouds all over the sky. These two poems are not only a self-confession of the poet's inner world, but also a relief and encouragement to his old friend Bai Juyi.