Feelings and Encounters: No. 2
English translation and interpretation are being reviewed.
滞虑洗孤清。
持此谢高鸟，
因之传远情。
日夕怀空意，
人谁感至精？
飞沉理自隔，
何所慰吾诚？
English translation
The recluse returns to lie alone, stagnant cares washed clean in lonely stillness.
This I take to thank the high-flying birds, and through them send my far-off feeling.
Day and night I hold an empty longing, who can feel such utter sincerity?
Flying and sinking are by nature set apart, what is there to comfort my true heart?
Meaning
Since I withdrew to these quiet hills and forests I have lain alone each day beside the woods and springs, and the cares that had gathered in me have been washed away clean. I would offer thanks for this to the high-flying birds, for I must entrust to them these far-off thoughts of mine. Day and night I cherish this boundless feeling in vain, yet who can fathom the utter sincerity of my heart? The birds that fly and the fish that dive are by nature divided in their affections; how can they console this heart of mine?
Background
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In 737, the twenty-fifth year of the Kaiyuan era of Emperor Xuanzong of Tang, Zhang Jiuling was demoted from chancellor in the Department of State Affairs to chief administrator (zhangshi) of Jingzhou. Slandered in his later years and exiled despite his loyalty, "whenever he read Han Fei's 'The Sorrow of Isolation' his tears soaked the front of his robe" (Xu Hao, "The Spirit-Path Stele of His Lordship Zhang"), and so he wrote the twelve poems "Stirred by What I Have Met," and this is one of them.