It expresses the author's infinite emotion of living in a foreign land but unable to realize his ambition.
Summer Rain at Kaiyuan Temple in Liuzhou
The wind and rain are like late autumn, and the crows return to the door to hide behind the monks.
Thousands of rocks are invisible when the clouds are deep, but thousands of valleys are first heard when the water rises.
The bell calls the dream back to the sky and gazes in despair, and the letter is passed down from person to person until it rises and falls.
My face is like Tian, ??and my name is not my prime minister. I don’t want to envy Banchao for being a lord.
Translation
The wind and rain are blowing. Although it is summer, the scene in front of me is like late autumn; the crows have long returned to their nests and the temple doors have been closed. I only have monks to accompany me. It's extremely quiet inside. Thick clouds and mist filled the whole world, and no beautiful mountains and rocks could be seen; the streams rose, and the rushing sound in my ears was the sound of thousands of streams and springs competing for water. The ringing of the bell jolted me back from my dream of homesickness, leaving me feeling melancholy and confused. I didn't receive any letters from my relatives and friends, which made me even more sad. My appearance is very ordinary, and my face is not as square as a field; therefore, I don’t envy Ban Chao, who flies and eats meat, and who is made a prince thousands of miles away.
The first couplet of the poem describes the scenery, with the five characters "Xia Yu in Kaiyuan Temple" as the title. A heavy rain in summer drove away the heat. The temple was originally cool, but now it became even more chilly. As a result, the poet listened to the sound of wind and rain, and his heart surged. Although it was summer, he felt an endless sense of sadness and desolation like autumn. The scenery written in the poem is extremely quiet, whether it is the "wind and rain curtain", the dusk scene of "The Crow Returns to the Gate", or the empty loneliness of the monks and temples, they are all blended with his own mood of living in a foreign country and worrying about his country and his body. Very deep. The three words "like late autumn" are the theme, which is a combination of climate and mood.
The chin couplet fastens the summer rain and writes about the scenery in the mountains: the dusk clouds are rising, covering the beautiful mountain peaks, and the sound of rushing water in the ravines is heard. Of these two sentences, one is written visually and the other is written auditory. Turning a blind eye and listening instead, it is natural to take over. The clouds and mist and the roar of water vividly represent the heavy rain in the mountains, which cannot be moved to the flat ground.
The neck couplet turns into emotional expression, which is a showy line in Lu Benzhong’s poems. The poem writes that the sound of the bell awakens the dream of homesickness, and when people return to reality, they feel even more melancholy; the core of the melancholy is that there is no news about relatives and friends in hometown, so the heart is full of excitement, recalling the mood of listening to the wind and rain in the first couplet. These two sentences use the contrast between dream and reality to express the wanderer's deep feelings of homesickness in every detail.
The last couplet shifts from homesickness to lamentation about national and family affairs. The poem borrows the classics of Li Anmin and Ban Chao, and combines the two classics to say that he is not the material to become a prince. On the one hand, he expresses his disdain for fame and wealth, and on the other hand, he expresses his sadness that he has no way to serve the country.