Ai Qing's early poems often reveal anxiety and excitement, pain and joy, depression and hope. However, with the change of thoughts, his poetic style gradually tends to be stable and unified, and clarity and joy become the keynote of his poems. The long poem Torch is a symbol of this evolution. The poet chose a poetic event in which people in a city held the torch high in the dark, inspired by the enthusiasm of the national anti-Japanese war, which interwoven the ideological struggle of the protagonist Downey and vividly showed how the torch of the national anti-Japanese war lit up the life path of intellectual youth. Finally, the author said a meaningful sentence through Downey's mother's mouth: "It's almost dawn", which indicates that the darkness is about to pass and the light is coming.
Ai Qing's poems are deeply rooted in the soil of the people and the times. His poems seldom chew personal joys and sorrows, but always pay attention to the fate of the broad masses of people, share the same sorrow, yearning and joy with the people. Therefore, his poems are broad and poetic, and they speak with colorful images. Therefore, most of his poems have novel and moving images, such as the image of the Wild Goose River in "Wild Goose River-My Nanny" and Torch. His poetic language is so vivid and concise, and at the same time it is so natural and simple.