The Song of the Dusk River was written by Bai Juyi on his way to Hangzhou to serve as governor. It describes the river in autumn. The whole poem has a fresh, smooth and natural style, depicting the beautiful scenery of the river like an autumn river picture. Unlike other poems that describe autumn scenery, this poem does not contain the sadness of the journey, which shows that the poet was in a relatively happy mood at that time.
The first half of the poem describes the river. The word "Pu" vividly illustrates the large angle of the setting sun at that time; the two characters "Half" show the two distinct colors of the river: rustling, red. These two sentences focus on the poet's observations of the river water. The last two sentences of the poem skip over the river and mainly write about the moon. They also point out that the time is the third day of September, when the dew is like pearls and the moon is shaped like a bow. Metaphorical rhetoric is used here. After reading this poem, readers will naturally further think about how broad and far-reaching the scene of the crescent moon and the river echoing in the distance is, and the poet's praise of nature is completely integrated into the scenery.