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清 Qing · 诗 Poem

梦中作四截句

Four Quatrains Composed in a Dream (No. 1)

龚自珍

Gong Zizhen

黄金华发两飘萧，六九童心尚未消。
叱起海红帘底月，四厢花影怒于潮。

Yellow gold and white hair — both are drifting away;
the child's heart of this fifty-fourth year is not yet spent.
I shout up the moon from beneath the sea-red curtain:
on all four sides the flower shadows rage past the tide.
Listen

Meaning

Composed in a dream, the quatrain opposes age to undying spirit. Wealth (yellow gold) and aging hair alike are blowing away, yet the child's heart — 'six-nine', fifty-four years old — has not been extinguished. With a shout the poet summons the moon up from beneath the crimson curtain, and on every side the flower shadows surge with a violence beyond the tide. It is a vision of imaginative power that age and loss cannot subdue.

黄金华发两飘萧，六九童心尚未消。叱起海红帘底月，四厢花影怒于潮。

Appreciation

[Plain Paraphrase] Gold and grey hair both scatter in the wind — riches going, youth gone — yet the child's heart, in this fifty-fourth year, is still unspent. Then the dream erupts: the poet shouts, and the moon leaps up beneath the sea-red curtain; on all four sides the flower shadows rise and rage like a tide beyond tides. [Structure] Two lines of ledger and two of vision. The first couplet balances loss against survival with laconic symmetry; the second abandons account-keeping for pure image, and the verbs do the turning — 'shout up' and 'rage' convert stillness into storm. [Imagery] 'Sea-red' curtain and moon, 'flower shadows raging past the tide': colors deepen and motion inflates until the whole room seems a sea in flood. The audacity of making shadows 'rage' — a flower-shadow tidal wave — is pure Gong Zizhen, the poet of unappeasable vitality, dreaming an energy the waking world denies him.

【白话串讲】 龚自珍写《梦中作四截句》：“黄金华发两飘萧，六九童心尚未消”——“叱起海红帘底月，四厢花影怒于潮”——他在梦中作诗——四厢花影怒于潮。 【意象与手法】 “黄金华发两飘萧，六九童心尚未消”以华发童心对举；“叱起海红帘底月，四厢花影怒于潮”以“叱起”写豪气、“花影怒于潮”写奇想。意象瑰奇、豪宕奇幻，梦中作诗想象奔放。 【情感与主旨】 记梦之作，写梦中叱月赏花的奇幻景象与未消的童心，体现龚自珍诗奇崛浪漫、不受拘束的风格。 【名句点睛】 常考“叱起海红帘底月，四厢花影怒于潮”以叱月花影写奇想；“黄金华发两飘萧，六九童心尚未消”以华发童心对举写童心未消。

Background

Gong Zizhen (1792–1841), courtesy name Seren, sobriquet Ding'an, a native of Renhe (Hangzhou), Zhejiang, was the foremost thinker and poet of the late Qing, famed for prophetic essays and the Miscellaneous Poems of the Year Jihai. 'Six-nine' in the poem is read as fifty-four — his age when, late in his career and chafing at the era's stagnation, he recorded poems composed in dreams. The dream-quatrain was his favorite mode for the unconscious energy that daylight scholarship suppressed: gold and grey hair falling away, a child's heart still burning, and a shouted moon raising tides of flower shadows. The poem distills his temperament — extravagant, ungovernable, forever young.

《梦中作四截句》为清代诗人龚自珍所作诗。龚自珍（1792—1841），字璱人，号定盦，浙江仁和人，清代思想家、诗人、文学家。此诗写感怀奇幻，为梦中所作。诗中「黄金华发两飘萧，六九童心尚未消」写黄金华发两飘萧，六九童心尚未消；「叱起海红帘底月，四厢花影怒于潮」写叱起海红帘底月，四厢花影怒于潮。龚自珍此诗以感怀奇幻、四厢花影怒于潮写其奇幻之情，豪宕奇幻，是龚自珍诗中的名篇。此篇《梦中作四截句》在历代选本中多被收录，其艺术价值与流传之广，正可见此诗在同类题材中的重要地位。诗人以匠心独运之笔写寻常之情事，遂使此作历千载而犹有生气，为后人所称赏不绝。此篇《梦中作四截句》在历代选本中多被收录，其艺术价值与流传之广，正可见此诗在同类题材中的重要地位。诗人以匠心独运之笔写寻常之情事，遂使此作历千载而犹有生气，为后人所称赏不绝。

Art

The quatrain's art is the shock of juxtaposition. The first couplet is all subtraction: 'yellow gold' and 'white hair' — fortune and youth — 'both drifting away', set against the single survival, the child's heart 'not yet spent'. The number 'six-nine' (fifty-four) grounds the defiance in exact middle age, making the survival the more astonishing. Then the second couplet detonates: the verb 'shout up' (chi qi) is an act of command over nature, raising the moon from beneath a 'sea-red' curtain, and 'rage past the tide' (nu yu chao) inflates flower shadows — the most passive of images — into a tidal flood on all four sides. Color, sound, and motion escalate in seven characters. The dream license lets Gong do what few classical poets dare: verbs of fury applied to shadows and moon, abstraction set against conflagration. It is romanticism before its Chinese season, and it made the couplet famous.

此诗艺术上以「豪宕奇幻、以月写情」见长。全诗共四句两联，由黄金华发两飘萧而叱起海红帘底月。起「黄金华发两飘萧，六九童心尚未消」写黄金华发两飘萧：黄金华发两飘萧，六九童心尚未消；结「叱起海红帘底月，四厢花影怒于潮」写叱起海红帘底月：叱起海红帘底月，四厢花影怒于潮。全诗以月写情，由黄金华发两飘萧而四厢花影怒于潮，豪宕奇幻，是龚自珍诗中的名篇。通篇以少总多之法出之，章法严谨而用意深曲，意象凝练而情韵悠长，读之愈久，愈觉其构思之精与笔力之健，堪称同类诗作中不可多得之佳篇，足见诗人炉火纯青的艺术功力。通篇以少总多之法出之，章法严谨而用意深曲，意象凝练而情韵悠长，读之愈久，愈觉其构思之精与笔力之健，堪称同类诗作中不可多得之佳篇，足见诗人炉火纯青的艺术功力。通篇以少总多之法出之，章法严谨而用意深曲，意象凝练而情韵悠长，读之愈久，愈觉其构思之精与笔力之健，堪称同类诗作中不可多得之佳篇，足见诗人炉火纯青的艺术功力。

Allusions

The poem's allusive texture is light but charged. 'The child's heart' (tongxin) recalls the Ming iconoclast Li Zhi's 'On the Childlike Heart', which made the uncorrupted original mind the source of all true literature — Gong's claim that his own is 'not yet spent' is a quietly radical self-description. 'Six-nine' is reckoned as fifty-four, an autobiographical count that ties dream to diary. 'Sea-red' (haihong) is the classical name for a deep crimson, here lending the curtain a sea's breadth of color and preparing the tide imagery. The closing surge of flower shadows 'raging past the tide' transposes the stock image of moonlit flowers into a supernatural flood — less an allusion than an invention that reads like one.

诗中「黄金华发两飘萧六九童心尚未消」「叱起海红帘底月四厢花影怒于潮」等语，皆含典故故实。「黄金华发两飘萧六九童心尚未消」写黄金华发两飘萧六九童心尚未消；「叱起海红帘底月四厢花影怒于潮」写叱起海红帘底月四厢花影怒于潮。诗人以童心、花影等语入诗，不着痕迹，而把感怀奇幻之情写得真切可感，是善于熔铸典故的体现。此等用典之法，熔铸古今而不着痕迹，既不炫博以示学，亦不拘泥于旧解，正见诗人学养之深与运思之巧。读者于此等处尤当细心玩味，方能领会其言外之旨与味外之味。此等用典之法，熔铸古今而不着痕迹，既不炫博以示学，亦不拘泥于旧解，正见诗人学养之深与运思之巧。读者于此等处尤当细心玩味，方能领会其言外之旨与味外之味。此等用典之法，熔铸古今而不着痕迹，既不炫博以示学，亦不拘泥于旧解，正见诗人学养之深与运思之巧。读者于此等处尤当细心玩味，方能领会其言外之旨与味外之味。

Commentary

The final couplet '叱起海红帘底月，四厢花影怒于潮' is among the most quoted lines of Qing poetry: critics have praised the unprecedented verb 'shout up' and the violent transfer of 'rage' to flower shadows as the very signature of Gong Zizhen's 'extravagant and strange' (xiaoji qiguai) style. The poem is regularly read alongside his child's-heart poems and Miscellaneous Poems as evidence of a poetics in which vitality itself is the subject — age, poverty, and the deadening age unable to extinguish it. Later writers from the reform generation to the May Fourth era claimed Gong as a forerunner, and this quatrain's ungovernable energy was often cited. Anthologists rank it with the best dream poems in the tradition, noting that where most dream poems escape the world, this one storms it.

这首《梦中作四截句》，是龚自珍写感怀奇幻之作，写黄金华发两飘萧、叱起海红帘底月、四厢花影怒于潮之情，豪宕奇幻。起「黄金华发两飘萧，六九童心尚未消」——黄金华发两飘萧，六九童心尚未消。写黄金华发两飘萧：黄金华发两飘萧、六九童心尚未消——两飘萧、尚未消；结「叱起海红帘底月，四厢花影怒于潮」——叱起海红帘底月，四厢花影怒于潮。写叱起海红帘底月：叱起海红帘底月、四厢花影怒于潮——帘底月、怒于潮。这「叱起海红帘底月，四厢花影怒于潮」，是全诗之结：以四厢花影怒于潮写其奇幻。全诗豪宕奇幻，以月写情，正是龚自珍诗中的名篇。综观全诗，情真、景切、理深，三者浑融无迹，故能于短短数语之中寄无限深意，令人百读不厌。其含蓄蕴藉之处，正是中国古典诗歌以少总多、言有尽而意无穷的美学精神的生动体现。综观全诗，情真、景切、理深，三者浑融无迹，故能于短短数语之中寄无限深意，令人百读不厌。其含蓄蕴藉之处，正是中国古典诗歌以少总多、言有尽而意无穷的美学精神的生动体现。

Prosody

Form Seven-character quatrain (jueju): four lines, a single rhyme.诗（七言绝句）
Rhyme The rhymes — xiao (萧) and chao (潮) — belong to the Xiao rhyme group, a level-tone rhyme with a sweeping open vowel that carries the poem's rising wind. The first couplet rhymes and states, the second rhymes and explodes; level and oblique tones alternate in strict quatrain order.此诗为七言绝句，共四句两联。押韵：「消」「潮」押萧部韵。前两句起、后两句转合，平仄相间，正与写感怀奇幻的豪宕奇幻相称，也见其以七绝写奇幻的凝练。
Tone pattern The opening couplet moves in falling, scattering cadences — 'drifting away', 'not yet spent' — a sound of thinning out; the second couplet's initial oblique cluster on 'shout up' cracks the calm, and the last line rushes on the broad vowels of 'rage' and 'tide' like a flood. The tonal arc runs from dissipation to detonation, matching the dream's eruption.句式上，「黄金华发两飘萧，六九童心尚未消」写黄金华发两飘萧，音节豪宕；结「叱起海红帘底月，四厢花影怒于潮」写叱起海红帘底月，音节奇幻。全诗音节随情起伏，由豪宕而奇幻，正合七绝「凝练」之妙，读来如感怀奇幻、四厢花影怒于潮之音，豪宕而动人。
Reading note The quatrain shows how strict form can house wild content: the tonal pattern and the single soft rhyme remain exact while the diction mounts from elegy to uproar. The paired rhymes xiao and chao, both level and open, let the final line ring out rather than close down — the sound of a tide still advancing. Prosody here is the horse, not the harness: the classical quatrain's discipline makes the dream's violence the more startling, and the poem a famous instance of Gong Zizhen's 'sound running ahead of sense'.此诗为七言绝句，是龚自珍写感怀奇幻之作，也是其诗中的名篇。全诗的艺术特色在于「豪宕奇幻、以月写情」：「黄金华发两飘萧，六九童心尚未消」写黄金华发两飘萧、「叱起海红帘底月，四厢花影怒于潮」写叱起海红帘底月。全诗豪宕奇幻，以月写情。尤为精妙者，是「六九童心尚未消」写尽尚未消；而「四厢花影怒于潮」写尽怒于潮，正是龚自珍诗「豪宕奇幻」的典范，为历代选本所常收。《梦中作四截句》一诗之所以读来声情并茂，正在于诗人以声韵配合情思、以节奏烘托意境，音节之长短、平仄之起伏，皆与诗意相为表里，此亦可见中国古典诗歌声律之美与匠心之工。

Line by line

黄金华发两飘萧，六九童心尚未消。

Yellow gold and white hair — both are drifting away; the child's heart of this fifty-fourth year is not yet spent.

黄金华发两飘萧，六九童心尚未消。

Gold and graying hair, both are drifting and scant; the child's heart, though, has not yet faded.

起句写黄金华发两飘萧，起笔即见其华发。「黄金华发两飘萧」写黄金华发两飘萧，「黄金华发」写黄金华发、「两飘萧」写两飘萧；「六九童心尚未消」写六九童心尚未消，「六九童心」写六九童心、「尚未消」写尚未消。一句写黄金华发两飘萧六九童心尚未消，以黄金华发两飘萧写两飘萧、以六九童心尚未消写尚未消，写尽黄金华发两飘萧、六九童心尚未消之情。以发起兴，豪宕而奇幻，是「以发起兴」的妙笔。

The opening writes gold and graying hair, both are drifting and scant, the graying hair visible from the first stroke. Gold and graying hair, both are drifting and scant: gold and gray hair the two things, both drifting the sparseness. The child's heart, though, has not yet faded: the child's heart the undiminished childlike spirit, not yet faded the survival. One line: gold and gray hair both drifting, the child's heart not yet gone. Writing the two-fold sparseness of gold and gray hair, and the child's heart not yet spent, exhausts the feeling. Rising on the hair, bold and fantastic, the finest stroke of rising on the white hairs.

叱起海红帘底月，

I shout up the moon from beneath the sea-red curtain:

叱起海红帘底月，

I shout at the sea-red moon below the curtains,

此句写叱起海红帘底月，是全诗写叱起之态的关键。「叱起海红」写叱起海红，「叱起」写叱起、「海红」写海红；「帘底月」写帘底月，「帘底」写帘底、「月」写月。一句写叱起海红帘底月，以叱起海红写海红、以帘底月写帘底月，写尽叱起海红帘底月之情。以月写景，豪宕而奇幻，是「以月写景」的点睛之笔。此句以寥寥数语写尽深意，情韵兼胜，正是全诗点睛之笔。其于字句之间暗藏波澜，于平易之中寄寓曲折，尤当反复涵泳，方能得其三昧。

The line writes I shout at the sea-red moon below the curtains, the key to the poem's writing of the shouting-up. I shout at the sea-red: shouting up the command, sea-red the crimson hue. The moon below the curtains: below the curtains the hanging folds, the moon the orb. One line: I shout up the sea-red moon beneath the curtain. Writing the crimson moon, and the moon beneath the curtain, exhausts the feeling. Writing scene through the moon, bold and fantastic, the crowning stroke. The line writes deep meaning in few words, feeling and harmony together, the very eye of the poem; with undercurrents hidden between the characters, and turns lodged within the plain, it must be pondered again and again before its secret is found.

四厢花影怒于潮。

on all four sides the flower shadows rage past the tide.

四厢花影怒于潮。

and the shadows of flowers on all four sides rage like a tide.

结句写四厢花影怒于潮，是全诗立意的落点。「四厢花影」写四厢花影，「四厢」写四厢、「花影」写花影；「怒于潮」写怒于潮，「怒于」写怒于、「潮」写潮。一句写四厢花影怒于潮，以四厢花影写花影、以怒于潮写怒于潮，写尽四厢花影怒于潮之情。以潮写情，豪宕而奇幻，是全诗最动人处，也是「以潮写情」的点睛之笔。此句以寥寥数语写尽深意，情韵兼胜，正是全诗点睛之笔。其于字句之间暗藏波澜，于平易之中寄寓曲折，尤当反复涵泳，方能得其三昧。

The close writes the shadows of flowers on all four sides rage like a tide, where the poem's meaning comes to rest. The shadows of flowers on all four sides: four sides the four walls, the flower shadows the blooms' reflection. Rage like a tide: rage beyond, the tide the flood. One line: the flower shadows on four sides, raging like the tide. Writing the flower shadows, and the rage beyond the tide, exhausts the feeling. Writing feeling through the tide, bold and fantastic, the most moving passage of the poem, the crowning stroke. The line writes deep meaning in few words, feeling and harmony together, the very eye of the poem; with undercurrents hidden between the characters, and turns lodged within the plain, it must be pondered again and again before its secret is found.

Study

Word focus

华发 'White hair' — the mark of age, set beside 'yellow gold' as the poem's two spendthrift losses. Its scattering ('drifting away') makes time wind-borne; against it the child's heart stands unspent, so that the word's pathos is exactly what the poem defies. 「华发」写黄金华发两飘萧，是写华发之态的关键。「黄金华发两飘萧」着一「华发」，写华发——着一「华发」，写黄金华发两飘萧，见其发之华。两字写尽华发之态，是「以词写发」的妙笔。「华发」一字之用而全篇生色，与诗中情韵相为表里，正见诗人炼字之精与匠心之独运。读者于此等处若细细体会，自能领会其于平淡之中见功力、于寻常处见神奇之妙。
童心 'The child's heart' — the original, uncorrupted mind, echoing Li Zhi's ideal of the childlike heart as the wellspring of true feeling and writing. 'Not yet spent' at fifty-four is the poem's quiet manifesto: vitality is not a stage of life but a possession one refuses to surrender. 「童心」写六九童心尚未消，是写童心之态的关键。「六九童心尚未消」着一「童心」，写童心——着一「童心」，写六九童心尚未消，见其心之童。两字写尽童心之态，是「以词写心」的点睛之词。「童心」一字之用而全篇生色，与诗中情韵相为表里，正见诗人炼字之精与匠心之独运。读者于此等处若细细体会，自能领会其于平淡之中见功力、于寻常处见神奇之妙。
海红 'Sea-red' — the classical pigment name for a deep crimson. As the color of the curtain it floods the dream-scene with a sea's hue before the sea itself appears; the word quietly prepares the tide imagery of the closing line, so that color becomes prophecy. 「海红」写叱起海红帘底月，是写海红之态的关键。「叱起海红帘底月」着一「海红」，写海红——着一「海红」，写叱起海红帘底月，见其红之海。两字写尽海红之态，是「以词写红」的点睛之词。「海红」一字之用而全篇生色，与诗中情韵相为表里，正见诗人炼字之精与匠心之独运。读者于此等处若细细体会，自能领会其于平淡之中见功力、于寻常处见神奇之妙。
花影 'Flower shadows' — traditionally the most gentle, passive of images, moonlit silhouettes on walls. Here they 'rage past the tide': Gong turns passivity into elemental violence, making the shadow a flood on all four sides. The word is the hinge of the poem's audacity. 「花影」写四厢花影怒于潮，是写花影之态的关键。「四厢花影怒于潮」着一「花影」，写花影——着一「花影」，写四厢花影怒于潮，见其影之花。两字写尽花影之态，是「以词写影」的点睛之词。「花影」一字之用而全篇生色，与诗中情韵相为表里，正见诗人炼字之精与匠心之独运。读者于此等处若细细体会，自能领会其于平淡之中见功力、于寻常处见神奇之妙。

Related Reading

水调歌头·明月几时有 Shui Diao Ge Tou: When Did the Bright Moon First Appear? 苏轼 · 同写奇幻感怀、豪宕旷达，一写我欲乘风归去、一写叱起海红帘底月四厢花影怒于潮，皆于奇幻之中见豪宕 Both rise to the moon in wonder: Su Shi asking to ride the wind home, Gong shouting the moon up through the curtain — each finds in the moon a freedom beyond the world.

Su Shi's Shui Diao Ge Tou — 'I would fain ride the wind and return, yet fear the jade towers are too cold in their height' — approaches the moon with philosophical longing and returns to human warmth. Gong Zizhen's dream quatrain, with 'I shout up the moon from beneath the sea-red curtain' and 'the flower shadows rage past the tide', commands rather than requests: his moonrise is a violent act of will, his wonder a storm. One is Su Shi's broad-minded transcendence, the other Gong's ungovernable vitality. Read together, they show two manners of 'wonder and feeling': the same moon raised by patience in one, by a shout in the other.

苏轼《水调歌头·明月几时有》「我欲乘风归去，又恐琼楼玉宇，高处不胜寒」，写奇幻感怀、豪宕旷达，是宋词长调的名篇；龚自珍《梦中作四截句》则以「叱起海红帘底月，四厢花影怒于潮」「六九童心尚未消」写怒于潮、尚未消。两诗同写奇幻感怀、豪宕旷达：一写我欲乘风归去、以乘风写超然，一写叱起海红帘底月四厢花影怒于潮、以花影写奇幻；一为苏轼之旷达、一为龚自珍之豪宕，并读正可见诗写「奇幻感怀」的两种笔法，皆于奇幻之中见豪宕。

 八声甘州·对潇潇暮雨洒江天 Ba Sheng Gan Zhou: Facing the Soughing Evening Rain Scattered over River and Sky 柳永 · 同写帘底凝望、豪宕清丽，一写对潇潇暮雨洒江天、一写黄金华发两飘萧六九童心尚未消，皆于帘底之中见凝望 Both watch from beneath a stillness — Liu Yong from the tower under evening rain, Gong from beneath the sea-red curtain — each finding a vast motion in what the eye surveys.

Liu Yong's Ba Sheng Gan Zhou — 'facing the soughing evening rain scattered over river and sky, one wash of clear autumn' — watches weather move over a vast landscape, its motion grand but melancholy. Gong Zizhen's dream poem, with 'yellow gold and white hair, both drifting away' and 'the child's heart not yet spent', sets its gaze indoors and its motion supernatural: shadows raging past the tide. One is Liu Yong's limpid melancholy, the other Gong's audacious exultance. Read side by side, they show two ways of 'gazing from beneath the curtain': both hold a fixed point and release a flood — Liu Yong's of rain, Gong's of flower shadows.

柳永《八声甘州·对潇潇暮雨洒江天》「对潇潇暮雨洒江天，一番洗清秋」，写帘底凝望、豪宕清丽，是宋词写羁旅的名篇；龚自珍《梦中作四截句》则以「黄金华发两飘萧，六九童心尚未消」「叱起海红帘底月」写尚未消、帘底月。两诗同写帘底凝望、豪宕清丽：一写对潇潇暮雨洒江天、以暮雨写清秋，一写黄金华发两飘萧六九童心尚未消、以童心写奇幻；一为柳永之清丽、一为龚自珍之豪宕，并读正可见诗写「帘底凝望」的两种笔法，皆于帘底之中见凝望。