It means: if you don't know how to be strong when you are young, you will be white-haired and accomplish nothing when you are old, and it is useless to be sad again.
Appreciation: This sentence is to advise people to cherish youth, work hard, and don't wait until they are old to regret it. Full of persuasion, conveying a positive attitude towards life.
Original text:
HanYueFu ChangGeHang
The trees in the garden are lush, and the crystal dew rises in the sun.
Spring fills the earth with hope, and everything presents a scene of prosperity.
I am always afraid that when the cold autumn comes, the trees in Ye Er will turn yellow and the grass will wither.
The river runs to the sea, and when will it return to the west?
If young people don't work in time, they will only regret for life when they are old.
Creative background:
This poem is one of Han Yuefu's poems. Long-line songs refer to freestyle singing with "long singing" as the tune. Yuefu is a royal musical organ established since the Qin Dynasty. It not only sings the poems of literati, but also undertakes the task of collecting folk songs. During the period of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, a large number of poems were collected from the people, which were rich in content and wide in subject matter.