This poem was written in the first year of the Yuan Dynasty (760), when Du Fu had just settled in a thatched cottage in the western suburbs of Chengdu. After years of wandering around, he was relieved to finally have a place to rest. However, the reality of a dilapidated country and devastated people always struck his soul, making him unable to remain calm. This poem reveals the subtle and profound emotional fluctuations in his heart.
The first four lines of the poem describe the scene of the thatched cottage. The writing style is leisurely and sparse, and the lines seem to be picked at random. The word "ye Lao" at the beginning is Du Fu's self-proclaimed name. The river bank is surrounded by bamboo fences and thatched cottages. At this time, the poet is walking along the riverside in front of the thatched cottage to watch. The beauty of the sentence "Chai Men" is that it is written effortlessly. This chai gate seems to have been installed at random. Since the river turns a corner here, let's install a gate facing the river. It doesn't matter if the orientation is not right, let everything take its course. And over there in the clear green Baihua Lake, fishermen were happily fishing with nets. "Chengtan" refers to Baihuatan, which is the water area south of the thatched cottage. Perhaps because the river flows in a meandering way, it is suitable for boats to dock. The merchant ships also docked here one after another, reflecting the sunset. These four sentences are the scene of the poet's ambition. The words are so pure and natural, as if they outline a simple and quiet picture of leisurely living in a river village. The whole picture is full of the interest of the countryside, conveying the poet's leisure mood at this moment. However, Du Fu was not a detached hermit. After looking at it for a long time, he actually had another emotion.
The "Long Road" comes from the "Jia Passenger Ship", and the connection is very natural. Du Fu has a poem that says: "The ships thousands of miles away from Dongwu are parked at the door" ("Four Quatrains"), which probably refers to these "passenger ships". It was these "thousand-mile ships" that disturbed his calm state of mind and reminded people of the long journey. This "long road" first led his thoughts to the north and south of the Yangtze River, where there were his brothers and sisters who he missed day and night. He often wanted to go eastward along the river. From this, I thought of another "long road": going north to Chang'an, going east to Luoyang, and returning to my hometown. However, with the fall of Jianmen, not only was the way back cut off, but the entire situation was so tense and critical that it made people increasingly worried. In this confusion and pain, he looked up and saw white clouds, and couldn't help but ask: "Why are the clouds near Qintai?" Qintai is a famous scenic spot in Chengdu. It is said that Sima Xiangru and Zhuo Wenjun were selling wine on the street. place, this refers to Chengdu. "Pianyun" is used as a metaphor for oneself, which means: Why does my wandering body like floating clouds stay in Sichuan? First of all, of course, the war has not ended and the fighting has been blocked. But who drove him out of the court and deprived him of the opportunity to serve the country? This sentence expresses emotions through clouds, which is profound and subtle. The clouds near the piano platform are a natural phenomenon, so there is no need to ask questions. Therefore, this question seems to be clueless and impossible to answer. In fact, it expresses the poet's pain of living outside the sword and having no way to serve the country, as well as his confused mood of not being able to find a way out.
The two sentences at the end convey the poet's sad and sad mood. The poet lamented that after Luoyang fell again last year, it has not yet been recovered, and Tibet is eyeing it in the northwest. The crisis of war is also lurking in Sichuan. Listening to the sound of the horn painting coming from the city wall of Chengdu in the bleak autumn wind, how sad and desolate it is! The whole poem ends with this, leaving an endless aftertaste.
The scene described in the first four lines of the poem is exactly what Wang Guowei said, "a state of selflessness". "In the state of selflessness, one observes things through things, so one does not know which is me and which is the thing." ("Human Words") This means that the poet observes external objects with a peaceful state of mind, and the "self" seems to be dissolved into the objective world. , the artistic conception written at this time is the state of selflessness. In the first four lines of this poem, the poet is in an indifferent and quiet state of mind, completely intoxicated by the beautiful evening scenery of the riverside, and has reached the state of forgetting both things and myself. After the last four sentences of the poem turn to lyricism, they are still describing the scene, but at this time they have entered the "realm of me": "In the realm of me, I observe things with me, and the old things all have my color." (" "Human Words") The scenery here, whether it is clouds or city towers, autumn colors or horn sounds, are all imbued with the poet's sad emotional color. The two realms set off each other and produce a strong artistic appeal. When the first half of the poem showed the picture of Jiangcun, people thought that the poet had forgotten his feelings about nature. After reading the following, they felt his deep concern for the country and the people. It turned out that his leisurely and unrestrained way was to serve the country. A kind of self-relief from a doorless dilemma.
This kind of helpless detachment, in turn, deepens the expression of painful emotions. The painful undercurrent rushing under the calm water is a deeper sorrow.