The heart is still strong when the sun sets, and the autumn wind disease is about to recover.
From "Jianghan" by Du Fu in the Tang Dynasty
Explanation: Although I am old and frail and my days are numbered, my ambition to show my ambition still exists; facing the rustling Autumn wind, I feel that my body is gradually recovering.
It vividly shows the poet's spirit of actively using the world, and uses metaphorical techniques to write about the poet's mental state of being ambitious despite being in adversity. As far as the rhythmic poetry format is concerned, this couplet uses the method of borrowing and antithesis. "Sunset" is opposite to "Autumn Wind". The former is a fictitious description, a metaphor for "twilight years". The first couplet clearly mentions eternal night and lonely moon. The setting sun in this couplet is by no means a depiction of a real scene, but is used as a metaphor. Huang Sheng pointed out: "The setting sun is a metaphor for the twilight teeth", which is a sentimental poem rather than a description of the scenery. Otherwise, it would be self-contradictory to see both the lonely moon and the setting sun in a rhymed poem. The latter is actual writing. Living in Jianghan, facing the howling autumn wind, the poet not only lost the sentimental feelings of the past, but also felt "sick and dying". This change is a reflection of the poet's ambitious mentality and positive spirit of using the world. This just shows that the "corrupt Confucianism" in the second sentence is not purely the poet's contempt for himself. This is quite similar to Li Bai's ideological realm of "I feel the joy of autumn, but who knows the joy of autumn", which shows the poet's state of mind despite adversity.