Cool Thoughts
English translation and interpretation are being reviewed.
蝉休露满枝。
永怀当此节，
倚立自移时。
北斗兼春远，
南陵寓使迟。
天涯占梦数，
疑误有新知。
English translation
The guest is gone, the waves lie level with the rail, the cicadas are still, dew fills the branches.
Long I brood in this season, standing and leaning as the hours pass.
The Northern Dipper, with spring, is far away, at Nanling, the envoy tarries long.
At the world's end I read my dreams again and again, suspecting you have been led astray by a new acquaintance.
Meaning
When you left, the spring tide was level with the railing; now the cicadas have fallen silent and dew hangs heavy on the branches.
At this hour I think of you long and deeply, and leaning on the railing I do not notice the passing of time.
It is two years since I left Chang'an, and the messenger from Nanling is still slow to come.
Far apart at the world's end, I have often read my dreams for omens, and even suspect that you have found new friends and forgotten the old.
Background
Read the background
The circumstances in which this poem was written are difficult to determine, and the events it relates are far from clear. Li Shangyin was never successful in life: at court he held only minor offices in two short terms, and the rest of the time he drifted in distant parts, lodging on the staffs of provincial governors. This poem seems to have been written on yet another stretch of his wandering, when he looked back to Chang'an without being able to return and sought a new way forward without result; his long-cherished hopes could not be realized and he had nowhere to place himself, so that everything resolved into a feeling of grief and depression. Some hold that the poem tells of a woman thinking of her lover and suspecting that he has found a new favorite and cast her aside.