147. Seeing Off a Friend Going East | Wen Tingyun
Text
English translation
Original Chinese text
荒戍落黄叶，浩然离故关。
English translation
The desolate garrison is strewn with yellow leaves; with an expansive spirit you leave the old pass.
"Haoran" describes an open, broad-minded bearing, contrasting with the bleakness of the "desolate garrison." The first line describes the scene, the second the person.
Original Chinese text
高风汉阳渡，初日郢门山。
English translation
At the Hanyang ferry, a high wind blows hard; on Yingmen Mountain, the first sun shines.
These two lines imagine stages of the friend's eastward journey. Both "high wind" and "first sun" carry an air of openness, echoing the "expansive" of the opening couplet.
Original Chinese text
江上几人在，天涯孤棹还。
English translation
How many are left by the river? You will return in a lone boat from the edge of the sky.
"How many are left" asks how many old friends remain; "a lone oar returning" describes the friend's future solitude. Wen Tingyun moves from the farewell to his own situation.
Original Chinese text
何当重相见，樽酒慰离颜。
English translation
When can we meet again? A cup of wine consoles the face of parting.
“When can” means when it will be possible. The closing couplet returns to the most common farewell words, but placed after the first six lines, it does not seem a cliché.
赏析 · Commentary
送别诗里少见的开阔 · A Rare Breadth in a Farewell Poem
多数送别诗写的是凄恻，这首写的是开阔。首联的「浩然」直接把它与「黯然销魂」式的送别区分开；第二联的「高风」「初日」也是壮阔的景象。温庭筠没有把离去写成损失，而是写成一次有气势的远行。这种基调上的选择，决定了全诗读到后面还是昂扬的，只在末联落回一个普通的愿望。
Most farewell poems write desolation; this one writes breadth. "Expansive" in the opening immediately separates it from poems of heartbreak, and the "high wind" and "first sun" of the second couplet are grand sights as well. Wen Tingyun does not write the departure as a loss but as a journey with force in it. That choice of key keeps the poem elevated to the end, dropping to an ordinary wish only in the last couplet.
第三联的转 · The Turn in the Third Couplet
"江上几人在，天涯孤棹还" 是全诗情绪转向的地方。前面的开阔是对朋友的，这一联忽然变成对自己的：江边的旧友还剩几个，你自己也要一个人回来。温庭筠没有展开，只留了两个问题一样的句子。唐诗的送别里，这种从对方转向自己的转折常常出现在第三联，是全诗最要紧的位置。
"How many are left on the river, one oar returning from the sky's edge" is where the feeling turns. The breadth before belonged to the friend; this couplet turns to himself — how many old friends remain, and you too will come back alone. Wen Tingyun does not elaborate, leaving two sentences that read like questions. In Tang farewells this turn from the other to oneself usually falls in the third couplet, the poem's most important position.
末联的平常话 · The Ordinary Words at the End
"何当重相见，樽酒慰离颜" 是送别诗里最常见的说法，几乎成了套语。温庭筠把它放在最后，效果却不同：前六句已经写足了开阔与孤独，这一句平常话就成了唯一的落点——远行可以有气势，临别的心愿还是那么普通。套语用在对的地方，就不是套语。
"When shall we meet again, and a cup comfort this parted face" is the commonest thing said in a farewell poem, almost a formula. Placed last here it works differently: the six lines before have already given breadth and solitude, so the plain sentence becomes the only place to land — a journey can have force and the wish at parting is still that ordinary. A formula in the right place stops being a formula.