Original poem:
Young girls in Yangzhou are carefree and smiling. How can their beautiful faces hide their tears? A trace of sadness hanging on their lovely eyebrows is easy to be detected.
The glory of the land is three points, lovely Yangzhou, and you actually accounted for two points.
Translation:
The girl's beautiful face can't hide the tears of acacia's parting, and a little sadness hanging on the peach leaf eyebrow is easy to be noticed. There are three points in the brilliance of the bright moon on earth. Lovely Yangzhou, you actually scored two points.
Source: Recalling Yangzhou by Xu Ning in Tang Dynasty
Poetry appreciation
Xu Ning's poems are appreciated by Bai Juyi, but sometimes his poems are beautifully described but lack charm, so that they are ridiculed by Su Shi. This article is a memory of Yangzhou Yeyou, which is similar to Du Mu's poem Farewell, but it is not as ideological and artistic as it is. In the first two sentences, it is said that the face is hard to beat tears, the eyebrows are easy to grieve, and the words are old and useless.
But the last two sentences are wonderful. The beautiful night is the best in the world, and Yangzhou is the second. It is difficult and practical, and the language is very strange, which makes people want to see the prosperity of Yangzhou at that time. Its original intention is to look back on the narrow and evil journey in the past, full of nostalgia and disappointment, and also objectively show the true colors of Yangzhou, a commercial metropolis in the Tang Dynasty. The so-called "raising a son" is not empty talk. Therefore, every time this poem is quoted by later generations to describe Yangzhou, it is well known.