Thoughts on a Tranquil Night

Li Bai
Before my bed a pool of light
O can it be frost on the ground?
Looking up, I find the moon bright;
Bowing, in homesickness I’m drowned.

This poem was written in the Yangzhou Hostel on September 15th of the lunar calendar in the 14th year of Emperor Xuanzong of Tang Dynasty (726), when Li Bai was 26 years old.

The whole poem does not have ornate diction or complicated rhetoric. It only uses the narrative tone to describe the homesickness of the traveler. The language is fresh and simple, but it is very meaningful.