Dreaming of Li Bai: No. 2
English translation and interpretation are being reviewed.
游子久不至。
三夜频梦君，
情亲见君意。
告归常局促，
苦道来不易。
江湖多风波，
舟楫恐失坠。
出门搔白首，
若负平生志。
冠盖满京华，
斯人独憔悴。
孰云网恢恢，
将老身反累。
千秋万岁名，
寂寞身后事。
English translation
The drifting clouds go on their way all day, but the wanderer does not come.
For three nights you have come often to my dreams, such closeness shows your feeling for me.
When you bade farewell you were always hurried, bitterly saying the way was not easy.
Rivers and lakes are full of wind and waves, I fear your little boat may founder.
Going out, you scratch your white head, as if you had betrayed the hopes of your life.
Caps and canopies fill the capital, this man alone is worn and haggard.
Who says the net of heaven is wide and wide? Now that he is old, he is caught in it instead.
A name for a thousand autumns, ten thousand years, but loneliness is what follows death.
Meaning
The drifting clouds in the sky come and go all day long; why does the traveller far away never arrive?
Night after night I dream of you again and again, and know thereby how deep your feeling is for me.
When we parted your look was ever hurried, and you would say how hard it is to meet again.
Upon the lakes and rivers there are perilous winds and cruel waves; I fear your boat may be overturned and sunk.
Going out, you scratch your white head, regretting the ambitions of a lifetime unfulfilled.
The officials of the capital come in an endless train of caps and canopies, while you, whose talent towers above the age, are worn and haggard.
Who can say that Heaven is just and deals no wrong? In your declining years you are innocently entangled in another's guilt.
Even though a fair name should endure a thousand autumns, it cannot make up for the neglect and sorrow you have borne.
Background
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The two poems "Dreaming of Li Bai" were written in the autumn of 759 (the second year of the Qianyuan era), when Du Fu was living in exile at Qinzhou; this is one of them. In 757 (the second year of the Zhide era), Li Bai was implicated for having served on the staff of Prince Yong, Li Lin, and was thrown into prison at Xunyang (present-day Jiujiang, Jiangxi). In the early part of 758 (the first year of the Qianyuan era), he was sentenced to perpetual banishment to Yelang (present-day Tongzi, Guizhou). In the second month of 759 (the second year of Qianyuan), while on his way into exile through the Three Gorges, he was pardoned and released, and returned to Jiangling. Du Fu was then living in exile at Qinzhou, in a remote place cut off from all news; he had heard only that Li Bai had been banished and did not know that he had already been pardoned, and so remained anxious about him and wrote these two poems to express his thoughts.