Li Bai [Tang Dynasty]
so bright a gleam on the foot of my bed, could there have been a frost already?.
lifting myself to look, I found that it was moonlight, sinking back again, I thought suddenly of home.
This poem is about Li Bai's yearning for his hometown on a silent moonlit night.
The first two sentences of the poem are an illusion created by the poet in the specific environment of a foreign country for a moment. A person who lives alone in a foreign country, who is busy during the day, can still dilute his sadness. However, in the dead of night, it is inevitable that his heart will be filled with waves of missing his hometown. What's more, it's on a moonlit night, what's more, it's on a frosty autumn night. The word "doubt" in "could there have been a frost already?" vividly expresses that the poet woke up from his sleep and mistook the cold moonlight shining in front of his bed for thick frost on the ground. The word "frost" is used better, which not only describes the bright moonlight, but also expresses the cold of the season, and also sets off the loneliness and desolation of the poet wandering in other places.
The last two sentences of the poem, on the other hand, deepen the feeling of homesickness through the depiction of action and manner. The word "hope" takes care of the word "doubt" in the previous sentence, which shows that the poet has turned from a daze to a sober one. He stares at the moon eagerly and can't help but think that his hometown is also under the bright moon at this moment. So naturally leads to the conclusion of "sinking back again, I thought suddenly of home". The action of "bowing one's head" depicts that the poet is completely in meditation. And the word "thinking" leaves readers with rich imagination: the old brothers, relatives and friends in that hometown, the mountains, rivers, trees and grass in that hometown, the lost years and the past … are all in my thoughts. A word "thinking" contains too much content.