长寿山居元夕 (Lantern Festival in Longevity Mountain)
金朝·元好问(Yuan, Haowen) ·Of thirty nine years of unending change,
only my shadow at twilight remains.
Original Poem
三十九年何限事，只留孤影伴黄昏。
— 金朝 · 元好问《长寿山居元夕》
Translation
fall leaves on the mountain,
snow lying at the door.
Of thirty nine years of unending change,
only my shadow at twilight remains.
Notes
Yuan Haowen(元好问) is a historian, a writer and a poet from the end of the Jin Dynasty to the period of the Mongolian Kingdom. He is mostly famous for writing poems about the turmoil during the years of war.
When this poem was written, Haowen was grieving the death of his mother, which was partly responsible for his depression. In addition, the poet had gone into exile overseas several times and witnessed the massacre of the Mongolian army. Although this poem is full of real scenes of barren villages, it was actually related to the poet’s mood at that very moment.