It comes from "Leaving the City for the First Time and Farewell" by Bai Juyi, a poet of the Tang Dynasty.
Original text——Returning from the Forbidden City in the morning and leaving Qingmen in the evening. Don't say anything, just to the east of the city is Jiangnan Road. Whips are raised, carriages and horses are raised, and relatives and friends are waved to bid farewell. I was born without a hometown, and peace of mind is my home.
Translation——Return from the Forbidden City in the morning and leave from the east of Chang'an City in the evening. Let’s not talk about the twists and turns of the roads in the east of the city. The place we want to go on this trip is Jiangnan Road. The carriages and horses were ready and they set off on the road with whips raised and waving goodbye to their relatives and hometown. I was born with no fixed place, as long as my heart is calm, that is my destination.
Bai Juyi (772-846), whose courtesy name was Letian, was also known as Xiangshan Jushi in his later years. In the 16th year of Zhenyuan, he became a Jinshi. During the Yuanhe period, he served as Zuo Shiyi and Zuo Zanshan. Later, he offended the powerful by requesting the arrest of the murderer who assassinated Prime Minister Wu Yuanheng, and was demoted to Jiangzhou Sima.
As a later official, he became the Minister of the Ministry of Justice. In terms of literature, he advocated that "articles should be written according to the time, and songs and poems should be written according to the situation." He was an advocate of the New Yuefu Movement. His poems are easy to understand, and it is said that it took an old woman to understand his poems. Together with Yuan Zhen, he is also known as "Yuan Bai". Together with Liu Yuxi, he pioneered the style of writing lyrics based on sound in the mid-Tang Dynasty. There is "Bai's Changqing Collection".
Extended information:
Creative background
In 815 AD, Prime Minister Wu Yuanheng was assassinated. Bai Juyi advocated the strict arrest of the murderer, which was considered to be overstepping his duties. . Later, Bai Juyi was slandered again: his mother fell into a well and died while looking at flowers, but Bai Juyi wrote poems "Appreciating Flowers" and "New Well", which was harmful to famous religion. So he used this as an excuse to be demoted to Sima of Jiangzhou (now Jiujiang, Jiangxi).
"My heart has no home, and my peace of mind is my home" is Bai Juyi's expression of his inner feelings and his disappointment with the court at that time.
Bai Juyi believed that "emotion" is the fundamental condition of poetry. "What touches people's hearts is nothing more than emotion." And the generation of emotions is based on feelings and events and is tied to current affairs. Therefore, Bai Juyi's poetry creation does not depart from reality. It is based on various events in real life and reflects the social and political conditions of an era.
He inherited the tradition of poetry and poetry since the Book of Songs, and attached great importance to the realistic content and social role of poetry. Emphasize the function of poetry in exposing and criticizing political shortcomings. He put forward a series of principles on the expression method of poetry.
Baidu Encyclopedia—Bai Juyi