塞下曲
[清]顾炎武
赵信城[1]边雪化尘，
纥干山[2]下雀呼春。
即今三月莺花满，
长作江南梦里人。
注释：
[1]赵信城：古代匈奴境内的城，在今天蒙古高原杭爱山一带。
[2]纥干山：又称“纥真山”，在山西大同东，这里代指塞外环境。
A Frontier Song[1]
Gu Yanwu
In the surrendered town snow melts into dust quiet;
The birds below the Northern Mountain cry for spring.
Now in third moon orioles and flowers run riot,
The killed should come south to his wife’s dream on the wing.
注释：
[1]This song describes the Northern frontier where Southern warriors were killed; the South may allude to the Ming Dynasty and the North to the Qing.
This poem was written in the fourth year of the Shunzhi reign of the Qing Dynasty (1667). It was the fourth year after the fall of the Ming Dynasty. The poet mourned the soldiers who died fighting for the Ming Dynasty by describing how a woman missed her husband who had been away from home for a long time in the bright and sunny spring season. The tone of the poem is sad and sorrowful. The poet chose the typical environment of the northern frontier: the ice and snow began to melt, the swallows and sparrows returned, the orioles and flowers bloomed, and the annual spring in the northern frontier finally came again. The bright spring light touched the spring feelings of the woman who missed her husband. She had been alone in an empty room for many years. She longed to reunite with her husband, but her husband had already fallen asleep in the northern frontier and became the man in her dreams forever. Spring did not bring happiness to the woman who missed her husband, but instead caused her greater pain. This heartbreaking tragedy filled the whole poem with a tragic atmosphere. The woman’s thoughts also implied the poet’s feelings. After the fall of the Ming Dynasty, the poet never forgot his homeland: “Always a person in my dreams of Jiangnan” is also the poet’s mourning for the Ming Dynasty, expressing the poet’s deep attachment to his homeland.
