128. Replying to Cheng Jin’s Poem Sent on a Present Occasion | Han Hong

题中「酬……见赠」说明这是回赠之作。韩翃没有从收到诗写起，而是先写自己那一晚的状态：竹席迎风、空城月淡、雁过银河、千家捣衣。四句都是秋夜的景，铺足了气氛，第三联才转到心事，末联才点出正在读的正是对方的诗。把赠诗放在最后，比放在开头更有力——读者已经跟着他熬了一整夜。

The title marks this as a reply. Han Hong does not begin with the receipt of the poem but with his own state that night: mat in the wind, pale moon over an empty town, a goose crossing the Milky Way, pounding blocks in a thousand houses. Four lines of autumn night set the air, then the third couplet turns to his mind, and only the last reveals that what he has been reading is his friend's poem. Placing the gift last is stronger than placing it first: the reader has stayed up the night with him.

这一联的名声来自对仗的尺度。「一雁」是极小、极孤，「千家」是极大、极众，中间还夹着「秋」和「夜」。数量上的悬殊让孤独看得见：满城的砧杵声各有各的归处，天上的那只雁只有自己。韩翃没有写一个「愁」字，两句一摆，意思就出来了。

The couplet is famous for the scale of its parallelism. One goose is the smallest and loneliest unit, a thousand households the largest and most collective, with autumn and night wedged between them. The disparity makes solitude visible: each pound of the blocks in the city has a home behind it, and the goose in the sky has only itself.

「不觉已鸣鸦」是一句家常话，却比任何致谢都合适。作者既不夸对方写得好，也不说感动，只报告自己读到天亮。赠答诗里，把自己的反应写到这一层，本身就是最高的评价。韩翃这一联还有一个用处：它把前六句的夜景收进一个动作里，让整首诗的时间从入夜走到天明。

"Before I knew it the crows were calling" is plain talk and fits better than any thanks. The poet neither praises the writing nor declares himself moved; he reports only that he read until dawn. In poems of exchange, taking one's own reaction that far is itself the highest praise. The couplet does one more thing: it gathers the six lines of night into a single act and carries the poem's time from dusk to daybreak.