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Everlasting Longing

By Li Bai Tang Dynasty

English Poetic Translation

Endless longing in the capital of old,
Where autumn crickets cry by the golden well.
The frost bites sharp, the bamboo mat grows cold;
A dim lamp flickers as my heart breaks in the spell.
I roll the curtain back, gaze at the moon and sigh—
A flower-like beauty hidden in the distant sky.
Above us stretches heaven's deep and dark-blue sea,
Below, the green waves roll in melancholy.
The sky is vast, the road remote, my wandering soul takes flight in vain,
Through mountain passes where dreams cannot attain.
Endless longing, crushing heart and soul in pain.

Classical Chinese & Pinyin

長相思，在長安，絡緯秋啼金井闌。
微霜淒淒簟色寒，孤燈不明思欲絕。
卷帷望月空長歎，美人如花隔雲端。
上有青冥之長天，下有淥水之波瀾。
天長路遠魂飛苦，夢魂不到關山難。
長相思，摧心肝。

cháng xiàng sī, zài cháng ān, luò wěi qiū tí jīn jǐng lán.
wēi shuāng qī qī diàn sè hán, gū dēng bù míng sī yù jué.
juǎn wéi wàng yuè kōng cháng tàn, měi rén rú huā gé yún duān.
shàng yǒu qīng míng zhī cháng tiān, xià yǒu lù shuǐ zhī bō lán.
tiān cháng lù yuǎn hún fēi kǔ, mèng hún bù dào guān shān nán.
cháng xiàng sī, cuī xīn gān.

Philological Direct Translation

Everlasting longing, in Chang'an,
crickets in autumn cry by the golden well railing.
Slight frost is piercing, the bamboo mat's color is cold,
the lonely lamp burns dimly, longing threatens to break the soul.
Rolling up the curtain, gazing at the moon, in vain I heave a long sigh,
the beauty like a flower is parted by cloud-tips.
Above is the dark-blue, distant vault of heaven,
below are the green waters with rising billows.
Sky is long, road is far, the soul's flight is bitter,
the dream-soul cannot reach, mountain passes are difficult.
Everlasting longing, breaks heart and liver.

Scholarly Exegesis & Cultural Commentary

I. Formal Poetic Architecture & Meter

This composition is classified under the ancient Yuefu folk-song style title Everlasting Longing, written in varying line lengths that mimic the irregular, sobbing cadence of emotional distress. Unlike the rigid constraints of regulated verse, this piece utilizes a shifting meter that moves fluidly between three-character refrains, five-character lines, and expansive seven-character declarations. The rhyme scheme shifts dynamically across level and oblique tones, creating an acoustic turbulence that mirrors the unstable, fluctuating psychological state of the speaker abandoned in the capital.

II. Historical Chronology & Existential Impulse

Composed during the high Tang period, this lyric reflects the pervasive anguish of separation characteristic of an empire whose vast territorial reach constantly demanded the long-distance travel of soldiers, officials, and scholars. Li Bai frequently appropriated the ancient persona of the abandoned woman or the exiled courtier longing for the imperial center (Chang'an) to articulate his own profound sense of political displacement and emotional estrangement from imperial favor, operating within the rich tradition of allegorical lament established by the ancient Songs of the South.

III. Line-by-Line Exegesis & Allusion Decoding

The poem opens with an immediate invocation of geographic distance and acoustic desolation, before descending into the intimate, chilling interior of solitary confinement.

Lines 1-2 (Opening Couplet): The poem begins with the evocative title phrase, anchoring the longing in Chang'an while acoustic details of autumn crickets by the golden well railing set a tone of melancholy desolation.
Lines 3-4 (First Antithetical Turn): The sensory landscape contracts into intimate interiority, where piercing frost and a dim lamp heighten the protagonist's impending emotional dissolution.
Lines 5-6 (Second Antithetical Turn / Climax): Opening the curtain reveals a cosmic barrier; the moon illuminates the cruel distance separating the lover from the flower-like beauty lost among the clouds.
Closing Lines (Resolving Couplet): The poem expands into dizzying verticality between heaven and earth before collapsing back into the raw, physical agony of a broken heart.

IV. Cultural Symbolism & Key Metaphors

The poem relies upon traditional classical Chinese topoi to convey unrequited yearning and insurmountable separation.

The Autumn Frost: Signifies both the literal change in season and the chilling descent of sorrow, isolation, and imperial neglect.
The Cloud-Tipped Beauty: Evokes the ancient trope of the unattainable transcendent or the sovereign lord, positioned in unreachable spheres far above the supplicant's reach.

V. Philosophical Core & Global Resonance

The philosophical underpinning of the piece synthesizes Daoist cosmic scale with Confucian emotional endurance. The agonizing juxtaposition between the infinite, indifferent universe—represented by the dark-blue sky and rolling green waters—and the finite, suffering human heart captures a universal existential truth. Across centuries, the poem endures because it articulates the profound vulnerability of mortal attachment against the backdrop of an overwhelming, impassive cosmos.