123. Written on New Year’s Day | Liu Changqing

这首诗是刘长卿被贬南巴（今属广东）时所作。四联正好是贬谪诗的四步：写处境（新年独处）、写身份（老而位卑）、写环境（猿与柳）、引古人自比（贾谊）。顺序上从当下到历史，从近到远，最后落在不确定的将来上。这类诗的结构高度定型，好坏就看每一句是否写得实。

Liu Changqing wrote this while exiled to Nanba, in what is now Guangdong. The four couplets are the four steps of an exile poem: situation (alone at New Year), standing (old and low in rank), surroundings (gibbons and willows), and finally a historical parallel (Jia Yi). The order runs from present to past and from near to far, ending on an uncertain future. The form is highly fixed; what matters is whether each line is concretely written.

「春归在客先」好在用了一个不可能的比较。春天没有家，诗人却让春天先到；这一让，就把自己排到了比季节还不如的位置。后半联的「老至居人下」是直说，前半联是曲说，两句合起来才完整：直说的是事实，曲说的是感受。唐诗常把这两样配在一联里，读起来就有层次。

"Spring goes home ahead of the traveller" works because it makes an impossible comparison. Spring has no home, yet the poet lets it arrive first, which files him below a season. The latter half, "old and under others," states plainly; the former half turns. Together they complete each other: one gives the fact, one the feeling. Tang verse often pairs the two inside one couplet, and the reading gains depth.

把自己比作贾谊，一半是自认才高（贾谊是汉代大才），一半是自认命薄（贾谊被贬且早逝）。这两种意思同时成立，正是这个典故在这里合适的原因。刘长卿没有说「我何时能回」，只问「又几年」，语气从自比退回到计算日子——最后剩下的还是具体的时间和一个回不去的家。

Comparing himself to Jia Yi is half a claim to talent (Jia was a great talent of the Han) and half a claim to hard luck (Jia was exiled and died young). Both meanings hold at once, which is why the allusion fits here. Liu Changqing does not ask when he may return, only "how many years more," and the tone retreats from the grand parallel to counting days — what remains is a specific span of time and a home he cannot get back to.