Climbing Liuzhou's City Tower, to the Four Prefects
English translation and interpretation are being reviewed.
海天愁思正茫茫。
惊风乱飐芙蓉水，
密雨斜侵薜荔墙。
岭树重遮千里目，
江流曲似九回肠。
共来百越文身地，
犹自音书滞一乡。
English translation
The high tower on the wall joins the great wasteland, over sea and sky, my grieving thoughts stretch vast and dim.
A sudden wind lashes the lotus waters, a dense rain beats aslant the fig-vine wall.
The ridge trees, rank on rank, bar a thousand li of sight, the river bends like a nine-times-coiled gut.
Together we came to this land of the tattooed Baiyue, and still our letters are stalled within one region.
Meaning
I climb the high tower, and far as the eye reaches lies a desolate, chill waste; sea and sky meet in the distance, spreading everywhere, even as my sorrow.
The fierce wind wantonly tosses the lotus upon the water; the dense rain beats aslant the wall covered with creeping fig.
Range upon range of distant hills rise and fall and block the view ahead; that winding Liu River is even as my heart, tied in a hundred knots of grief.
Together we came to this far and barbarous land; how can we bear that letters are cut off and each dwells apart from the others?
Background
Read the background
This poem was written at Liuzhou in the autumn of 815 (some say summer), the tenth year of the Yuanhe era of Emperor Xianzong of Tang. Liu Zongyuan and Han Tai, Han Ye, Chen Jian, and Liu Yuxi were all demoted for taking part in the Yongzhen Reform led by Wang Shuwen. In the tenth year of the Yuanhe era, Liu Zongyuan and the rest were summoned to the capital as a matter of routine, only to be demoted again as prefects of frontier prefectures. After reaching Liuzhou, the poet climbed the city tower and, confronted on all sides by the unfamiliar things of a foreign land, could not hold back a flood of feeling, and so wrote this poem.