Tongguan:
Finally, high clouds were gathering in the city, and the autumn wind blew away the sound of hooves.
The river is still too wild, and it is not smooth to enter Tongguan Mountain.
Annotation translation:
For a long time, high clouds have gathered in this Xiongguan, and the autumn wind has blown away the sound of hooves.
The surging Yellow River and the vast vilen are not stretched enough. Even after entering Tongguan from Huashan, I don't know what flatness is.
Creation background
Tongguan is a seven-character quatrain written by Tan Sitong, a politician and poet in the late Qing Dynasty. In the first sentence of this poem, Tongguan stands on the mountainside, facing the Yellow River. The situation is very dangerous. In the second sentence, the writer passed by, and the sound of horseshoes was blown away by the autumn wind, indicating the time and distance. The third and fourth sentences are about the mighty Yellow River, and the mountains in Tongguan are rolling. The whole poem is bold and unrestrained, and the combination of scenery writing and romance is exquisite and vivid.
This poem was written by the poet at the age of eighteen, which was the eighth year of Guangxu (1882). This spring, the poet got up from Liuyang and went to Lanzhou, Gansu, where his father Tan Jixun worked. After passing through Tongguan, the poet was deeply attracted by the magnificent scenery in front of him and wrote this hymn sincerely.