Seeing Someone Off North After the Rebels Were Quelled
English translation and interpretation are being reviewed.
时清独北还。
他乡生白发，
旧国见青山。
晓月过残垒，
繁星宿故关。
寒禽与衰草，
处处伴愁颜。
English translation
When the world was in chaos we went south together, now that times are settled, you alone go back north.
In a foreign land white hair has grown, in our old country the blue hills remain.
At dawn moon you pass ruined ramparts, beneath crowding stars you lodge at the old pass.
Cold birds and withered grass everywhere attend a sorrowing face.
Meaning
In the time of war I fled south with you, and now that the times are settled you go back north alone. Drifting in a strange land, white hairs have grown on your head, and of your home after the war you will see only the green hills. At dawn you will pass many broken camps, and at night you must camp in the open under the stars at desolate old passes. The birds of the wilderness and the withered yellow grass will follow your sad face everywhere.
Background
Read the background
This poem should be dated to the first year of the Guangde era of Emperor Daizong of Tang (763), not long after the An Lushan Rebellion had ended. The rebellion broke out in the fourteenth year of the Tianbao era of Emperor Xuanzong (755) and lasted eight years, leaving the people driven from their homes and unspeakably wretched. The New History of the Tang records that Sikong Shu was a native of Guangping; this "Guangping," according to research, lay in present-day Hebei or in the Beijing area, and was one of the regions worst ravaged by the An Lushan Rebellion. Not long after the revolt broke out Sikong Shu fled south to take refuge, and as soon as the war was over he saw off a friend who had taken refuge with him as the latter returned north, writing this poem. Why the author himself still lingered in the south after the rebellion is no longer possible to determine.