Author: Tang Libai
The sky is clear and the water flows smoothly.
The water suddenly runs out, and the sky is gone.
It's too late to go to scalper three times.
Three times, I don't feel my temples become silk.
After the Anshi Rebellion broke out, Li Lin of Wang Yong took it as his duty to quell the rebellion and sent messengers to invite Li Bai to join the shogunate three times. Li Bai applied for this job out of a good desire to serve the country and make contributions. In the second year of Zhide (757), there was a power struggle among Hengli, Tang Suzong and Yongli Emperor Li Lin, and Hengli wiped out Li Lin's army. Li Bai was found guilty and put into Xunyang prison. Later, Yelang was exiled. This poem was written by Li Bai when Yelang was exiled to the Three Gorges in February of the second year in Gan Yuan, Tang Suzong. Li Bai was 59 years old. At the age of 58, he went upstream from Jiujiang to Yichang, walked for almost a year, and then entered the Three Gorges. The Three Gorges is the most steep and difficult section of the Yangtze River. The journey here is slow, and his wife, master and brother-in-law have already bid farewell to Nanchang, so they are more lonely and in a worse mood.