Li Shangyin, a poet in the late Tang Dynasty, wrote a letter to a friend in the north on a rainy night.
Write to my wife in the north on a rainy night.
When you ask about the return date, it's hard to say, evening rain, Manqiuchi.
When * * * cut the candle at the west window, but talk about the rain at night.
Vernacular translation
You asked me when I would go back. I haven't set a date yet. At the moment, evening rain is falling, and the autumn rain is full of Hechi. When can I go back to my hometown, and we can talk while cutting candles under the west window? Then I'll be a guest in Bashan tonight and listen to the drizzle and tell you how lonely I am and how much I miss you!
Notes for Northern Friends on a Rainy Night is a lyric quatrain written by Li Shangyin to his wife (or friend) in Chang 'an, a foreign land in Bashu. It is the poet's reply to each other. The first two sentences of this poem, with questions and answers and descriptions of the immediate environment, illustrate the lonely feelings and deep nostalgia for his wife. The last two sentences imagine the joy of meeting again in the future and compare with the loneliness tonight. This poem is improvised, showing the twists and turns of the poet's feelings in an instant.
Extended data
Li Shangyin (about 8 13-858), a native of western Henan, Fan Nansheng, a native of Xingyang, Zhengzhou (now Xingyang, Zhengzhou, Henan), was a famous poet in the late Tang Dynasty, and was called "Xiao" together with Du Mu. Li Shangyin, Li He and Li Bai are also called "Li San".
Together with Wen, they are called "arts and sciences", because their poems and essays are similar to those of the same period, and all three of them rank sixteenth in the family, so they are also called "thirty-six styles".
Li Shangyin was one of the few poets who deliberately pursued the beauty of poetry in the late Tang Dynasty and even the whole Tang Dynasty. He is good at poetry writing, and parallel prose also has high literary value. His poems are novel in conception and beautiful in style, especially some love poems and untitled poems are touching, beautiful and moving, and are widely read. However, some poems (represented by Jinse) are obscure and inseparable, and there is a saying that "poets always love Quincy and hate that no one writes about Jian Zheng".
References:
Baidu Encyclopedia: Notes on Rainy Nights for Friends in the North