Beautiful spring outing in Surabaya, the endless scenery is new.
Everyone can see the face of spring, the spring breeze blows flowers open, thousands of purple, and the scene of spring is everywhere.
Poetically, this poem "Spring Day" is a poem about spring outing-the first sentence is "winning the day to find fragrance on the waterfront", in which "winning the day to find fragrance" reveals that the season is spring and the poet's activity is spring outing. Surabaya explains the location of the spring outing. The second sentence, "There will be boundless scenery for a while", describes the spring scenery, which is vast, indicating that the earth is full of spring and everything is reviving, giving people a brand-new feeling. The last two sentences were written by "seeking incense". "Wait a minute and you will know the east wind." The poet made a personalized description of the east wind, which means that once you feel the east wind blowing on your face, it will put a brand-new spring dress on the earth. "Everlasting Spring", with bright colors, vivid images and grand artistic conception, is a clever pen to describe spring. It has now become a well-known famous sentence and has been given a new meaning. This poem praises the prosperity of spring, full of vigor and vitality, and its style is strong and exciting. Literally, it can be regarded as a masterpiece of scenery and lyricism.
In fact, Zhu's purpose in writing this poem is not to praise spring and write about spring outing. But a profound truth from the perspective of Neo-Confucianism.
The "Surabaya" mentioned in the first sentence of the poem is in the central part of Shandong Province, where Confucius gave lectures and preached in the Spring and Autumn Period, and was buried here after his death. In the Southern Song Dynasty, the northern territory was occupied by Jin people, and Zhu never went north. It is naturally impossible to "find incense" in Surabaya. "Surabaya" here refers to Confucius and Confucianism; "Seeking incense" refers to exploring the way of saints. Looking for incense in Surabaya is to go to Confucius to find the truth, which is the theme of the poem. The last two sentences of the poem are intended to enlighten and guide people to realize that once the essence of Confucius' Confucianism is widely popularized and accepted by everyone and a new understanding is gained, they will realize the pleasure of "learning Taoism", thus bringing vigorous vitality and brand-new atmosphere to all aspects of society, making great changes and having far-reaching influence.
The whole poem adopts the technique of metaphor, discussing things with scenery and reasoning with things. It is not abstract reasoning, but has philosophical charm and interest, so this poem has both natural aesthetic interest and philosophical aesthetic height. As later generations commented on Zhu's poems, "Because he first put a lot of truth in his mind, and then he looked for the poet's words to set it off. Isn't this the same?" In other words, Zhu expressed his philosophy in real poetic language.