Thirteen Poems from the Southern Garden (No. 5) - Li He
/南园十三首(其五) - 李贺/
Autumn Yearnings amid Sparse Willows and Subtle Dawn
寒柳调疏声切切，
A chill wind stirs the sparse willow branches, their rustling keen and sharp.
夜来谁唱子虚言？
Late in the night, who is it still chanting those hollow, artful words?
微阳入扇才须薄，
A faint sunbeam slips through the fan’s weave, so thinly it hardly warms.
厮养新贫不脱冠。
He, newly impoverished, cannot afford to remove his formal cap.
倚醉听鸿殷落曙，
Leaning on his wine’s haze, he listens to wild geese cry as dawn recedes.
摩霜梳鬓约愁盘。
Brushing away the frost, he combs his hair, binding grief into a knot.
我今窗里思仙客，
Now, from my window, I yearn for an immortal visitor:
紫玉淋浴倚芝坛。
He bathes in violet jade and rests against an altar of sacred fungus.
A chill wind stirs the sparse willow branches, their rustling keen and sharp.
夜来谁唱子虚言？
Late in the night, who is it still chanting those hollow, artful words?
微阳入扇才须薄，
A faint sunbeam slips through the fan’s weave, so thinly it hardly warms.
厮养新贫不脱冠。
He, newly impoverished, cannot afford to remove his formal cap.
倚醉听鸿殷落曙，
Leaning on his wine’s haze, he listens to wild geese cry as dawn recedes.
摩霜梳鬓约愁盘。
Brushing away the frost, he combs his hair, binding grief into a knot.
我今窗里思仙客，
Now, from my window, I yearn for an immortal visitor:
紫玉淋浴倚芝坛。
He bathes in violet jade and rests against an altar of sacred fungus.
“Thirteen Poems from the Southern Garden” (《南园十三首》) is a cycle in which Li He muses on themes of fragility, longing, and the eerily beautiful. Poem No. 5 centers on images of chill winds, sparse willows, autumn geese, and dawn’s light, weaving a mood of wistful melancholy.
The first couplet sets the atmosphere: a biting wind rustles ‘sparse willows’ (寒柳), underscoring a sense of loneliness and cold, while someone’s voice in the night echoes ‘hollow words’—suggesting illusions or unfulfilled promises. The second couplet introduces a figure whose financial woes keep him from relinquishing his formal attire (‘cannot afford to remove his cap’), intimating the burdens of status or duty when resources run thin.
In the third and fourth couplets, Li He heightens the poem’s pathos through sensory detail—wine-induced drowsiness, the plaintive cry of wild geese at dawn, and the tangible bite of frost that forces one to brush away real and metaphorical coldness. These details contribute to an emotional layering: yearning and weariness, underscored by the unstoppable passage of time.
The final couplet shifts to a near-mythic note. Within the mundane sadness, the speaker dreams of a transcendent ‘immortal visitor’—a figure bathed in violet jade and leaning on a ‘mushroom altar’ (芝坛, referring to the potent, magical fungus often associated with immortality in Chinese tradition). This sudden ascent into the fantastical underscores Li He’s signature style: bridging the everyday’s harshness with the allure of otherworldly escape.
In reading these lines, one feels the tension between worldly burdens—poverty, longing, social constraint—and the poet’s inexhaustible desire for transcendent beauty. Li He’s compressed, elliptical allusions make the poem dreamlike, leaving readers with a sense of both deep, earthly sorrow and a tantalizing brush with the immortal.
Key points
• Evokes a wintry or autumnal setting where chill winds and dawn highlight a sense of desolation.
• The poem weaves together mundane hardship (the impoverished figure) with flights of mythic longing (immortal bathing in violet jade).
• Wild geese calls, faint sunlight, and frost-laden imagery showcase Li He’s skill at layering atmosphere.
• Concludes with a sudden invocation of immortality, demonstrating Li He’s blend of reality and fantasy—an escape from sorrow into mythic hope.
