清 Qing · 诗 Poem
泊樵舍
Mooring by the Woodcutter's Hut
涨减水愈急，秋阴未夕昏。
乱山成野戍，黄叶自江村。
带雨疏星见，回风绝岸喧。
经过多战舰，茅屋几家存？
under autumn's overcast it darkens before dusk.
Tangled hills have turned to wilderness outposts;
yellow leaves drift on the river village, unattended.
Through the rain a few scattered stars appear;
the whirling wind roars at the sheer bank.
So many warships pass this way —
how many thatched homes are left to survive?
Meaning
Mooring at a woodcutter's hut on an autumn river, the poet reads the landscape as a record of war. The subsiding flood races, darkness falls before dusk, tangled hills have become military outposts, and yellow leaves drift unattended by the river village. Scattered stars show through rain, wind roars against the cliffs — and the sight of passing warships prompts the quiet, devastating question: how many thatched homes are still inhabited? It is a picture of a countryside drained by campaigns, and a lament for the people who paid for them.
涨减水愈急，秋阴未夕昏。乱山成野戍，黄叶自江村。带雨疏星见，回风绝岸喧。经过多战舰，茅屋几家存？
Appreciation
[Plain Paraphrase] As the flood falls, the current only quickens; the overcast sky darkens long before evening. The tumbled hills bristle with garrison posts; yellow leaves scatter over a river village that no longer stirs. Through rain a few stars glimmer; wind howls off the sheer banks. And the warships that keep passing by make the poet ask the only question that matters: how many thatched houses still have anyone living in them? [Structure] Five couplets of scene build toward one couplet of question. Every image is double-coded: water, light, hills, leaves, stars, wind all seem natural, yet each has been altered by war — and the final couplet, by naming warships, throws the whole landscape into reverse illumination. [Imagery] The poem is a masterpiece of oblique realism: not one soldier is shown, not one battle described, yet 'wilderness outposts', an empty village, and passing warships tell everything. The quietness of the style — plain description, no exclamation — is itself the moral: devastation has become ordinary, part of the scenery.
【白话串讲】 施闰章写《泊樵舍》：“涨减水愈急，秋阴未夕昏”——“乱山成野戍，黄叶自江村”——“带雨疏星见，回风绝岸喧”——“经过多战舰，茅屋几家存”——他泊樵舍——茅屋几家存。 【意象与手法】 “涨减水愈急，秋阴未夕昏”以水急秋阴写秋景；“乱山成野戍，黄叶自江村”以乱山黄叶写战乱之象；“带雨疏星见，回风绝岸喧”以疏星回风写萧瑟；结以“经过多战舰，茅屋几家存”以战舰茅屋写民生凋敝。苍凉忧时、白描写实。 【情感与主旨】 泊船樵舍所见，写清初战乱后江村凋敝、民生艰难的景象，于写景中寄寓忧时之情，是清初遗民诗人施闰章的代表作。 【名句点睛】 常考“经过多战舰，茅屋几家存”以战舰茅屋写民生凋敝；“乱山成野戍，黄叶自江村”以乱山黄叶写战乱之象。
Background
Shi Runzhang (1618–1683), courtesy name Shangbai, sobriquet Yushan, a native of Xuancheng, Anhui, was one of the leading poets of the early Qing, known as one of the 'Two Masters of the South' (with Song Wan), and rose to Reader-in-waiting of the Hanlin Academy. Having lived through the Ming–Qing transition, he wrote many poems on the devastation left by the decades of war and suppression campaigns in the Yangzi region. This five-character regulated verse, written while mooring by a woodcutter's hut on a military waterway, registers that aftermath: garrisons squatting in once-wild hills, a river village reduced to drifting leaves, warships constantly passing, and the families of the villagers counted in the single question of the last line. It is a representative work of early-Qing social realism in poetry.
《泊樵舍》为清代诗人施闰章所作诗。施闰章（1618—1683），字尚白，号愚山，又号蠖斋，安徽宣城人，清初诗人，官至翰林院侍读。此诗写景忧时，为泊舟樵舍之作。诗中「涨减水愈急，秋阴未夕昏」写涨减水愈急，秋阴未夕昏；「乱山成野戍，黄叶自江村」写乱山成野戍，黄叶自江村；「带雨疏星见，回风绝岸喧」写带雨疏星见，回风绝岸喧；「经过多战舰，茅屋几家存」写经过多战舰，茅屋几家存。施闰章此诗以写景忧时、茅屋几家存写其忧时之情，苍凉忧时，是施闰章诗中的名篇。此篇《泊樵舍》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《泊樵舍》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 poem's craft lies in describing war without describing it. The opening couplet is pure observation with a hidden logic: 'the flood subsiding, the water runs the faster' is a natural fact — but also the age compressed into physics, force draining away into restless urgency; 'it darkens before dusk' bends time itself toward gloom. The middle couplets mount the evidence in strict parallelism: hills turned to outposts, leaves drifting 'unattended' past a village — the word 'self/unattended' (zi) quietly marking where the people have gone; stars glimpsed through rain, wind roaring at the cliffs. Each line is plain description; each is also testimony. Only in the final couplet does the poet speak, and even then only to ask a question — 'how many thatched homes are left?' — leaving the arithmetic of devastation to the reader. This restraint, the five-character form's terse gravity, and the refusal of all rhetoric make the poem's compassion overwhelming.
此诗艺术上以「苍凉忧时、以水写情」见长。全诗共八句四联，由涨减水愈急而乱山成野戍而带雨疏星见。起「涨减水愈急，秋阴未夕昏」写涨减水愈急：涨减水愈急，秋阴未夕昏；「乱山成野戍，黄叶自江村」写乱山成野戍：乱山成野戍，黄叶自江村；「带雨疏星见，回风绝岸喧」写带雨疏星见：带雨疏星见，回风绝岸喧；结「经过多战舰，茅屋几家存」写茅屋几家存：经过多战舰，茅屋几家存。全诗以水写情，由涨减水愈急而茅屋几家存，苍凉忧时，是施闰章诗中的名篇。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。
Allusions
The poem alludes less to books than to history. 'Wilderness outposts' (yeshu) — garrisons planted in open country — recalls the ancient poems of frontier service (biansai), but inverted: here the frontier has moved into the heart of the river country, the Ming–Qing wars having turned home into borderland. 'Warships' (zhanjian) points directly to the Qing campaigns against southern loyalists and the gunboat traffic of the early reigns; their constant passage past a fishing-and-firewood village is the poem's silent indictment. There is also a faint echo of Du Fu's war-time village poems — the questions posed at a desolate door ('how many households remain?') descend from the diction of 'The Officer at Shihao' lineage, placing Shi Runzhang squarely in the tradition of poetry as social witness.
诗中「涨减水愈急秋阴未夕昏」「乱山成野戍黄叶自江村」「带雨疏星见回风绝岸喧」「经过多战舰茅屋几家存」等语，皆含典故故实。「涨减水愈急秋阴未夕昏」写涨减水愈急秋阴未夕昏；「乱山成野戍黄叶自江村」用野戍之典（野戍写边戍），写乱山成野戍黄叶自江村；「带雨疏星见回风绝岸喧」写带雨疏星见回风绝岸喧；「经过多战舰茅屋几家存」写经过多战舰茅屋几家存。诗人以野戍、战舰等语入诗，不着痕迹，而把写景忧时之情写得真切可感，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。
Commentary
The poem has long been cited as the finest early-Qing example of 'poetry witnessing the times' (shi shi): critics single out the final couplet, where the passing warships and the question about thatched homes convert an entire landscape into evidence, as a model of indignant restraint. Qing and modern anthologies regularly include it as Shi Runzhang's representative piece, noting that his reputation for 'scholarly gentleness' is here replaced by a severity worthy of Du Fu. Commentators also praise the middle couplets' parallelism — outposts against village, stars against wind — for letting each natural image carry a double burden, so that description becomes accusation without one emotive word. In histories of Qing poetry the work stands with Wu Weiye's laments as a document of the transition's human cost.
这首《泊樵舍》，是施闰章写写景忧时之作，写涨减水愈急、乱山成野戍、带雨疏星见、茅屋几家存之情，苍凉忧时。起「涨减水愈急，秋阴未夕昏」——涨减水愈急，秋阴未夕昏。写涨减水愈急：涨减水愈急、秋阴未夕昏——愈急、未夕昏；「乱山成野戍，黄叶自江村」——乱山成野戍，黄叶自江村。写乱山成野戍：乱山成野戍、黄叶自江村——成野戍、自江村；「带雨疏星见，回风绝岸喧」——带雨疏星见，回风绝岸喧。写带雨疏星见：带雨疏星见、回风绝岸喧——疏星见、绝岸喧；结「经过多战舰，茅屋几家存」——经过多战舰，茅屋几家存。写茅屋几家存：经过多战舰、茅屋几家存——多战舰、几家存。这「经过多战舰，茅屋几家存」，是全诗之结：以茅屋几家存写其忧时。全诗苍凉忧时，以水写情，正是施闰章诗中的名篇。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。
Prosody
Line by line
涨减水愈急，秋阴未夕昏。
The flood subsiding, the water runs the faster; under autumn's overcast it darkens before dusk.
涨减水愈急，秋阴未夕昏。
The floods have ebbed, yet the current runs swifter; the autumn sky is overcast, and dusk falls before the evening is come.
起句写涨减水愈急，起笔即见其水。「涨减水愈急」写涨减水愈急，「涨减」写涨减、「水愈急」写水愈急；「秋阴未夕昏」写秋阴未夕昏，「秋阴」写秋阴、「未夕昏」写未夕昏。一句写涨减水愈急秋阴未夕昏，以涨减水愈急写愈急、以秋阴未夕昏写未夕昏，写尽涨减水愈急、秋阴未夕昏之情。以水起兴，苍凉而忧时，是「以水起兴」的妙笔。
The opening fixes the scene of the mooring at the woodcutter's lodge, already loaded with an ominous air. The floods have ebbed, yet the current runs swifter observes the paradoxical force of the water: the high water has fallen, yet the river does not calm but runs the more swift, as if the swollen waters, once spent, still drag their violence downstream. The autumn sky is overcast, and dusk falls before the evening is come names the season and the hour: the clouds of autumn, darkening, and yet not even sunset, already dim — the premature dusk at once the weather and the temper of the poet's mind. Two lines: the first of water, the second of sky; the current's speed and the sky's premature gloom set off each other, the whole mood desolate and foreboding. The poem opens not on the woodcutter's lodge but on the river's haste and the sky's darkness, storing force for the wilderness garrisons and river villages of the next couplet, and for the warships and thatched huts of the close. It is the craft of writing the time and the season to carry the feeling of an age gone awry.
乱山成野戍，黄叶自江村。
Tangled hills have turned to wilderness outposts; yellow leaves drift on the river village, unattended.
乱山成野戍，黄叶自江村。
The tumbled hills have become wilderness garrisons; yellow leaves drift by themselves in the river village.
此句写乱山成野戍，是全诗写乱山之态的关键。「乱山成野戍」用野戍之典写乱山成野戍，「乱山」写乱山、「成野戍」写成野戍；「黄叶自江村」写黄叶自江村，「黄叶」写黄叶、「自江村」写自江村。一句写乱山成野戍黄叶自江村，以乱山成野戍写成野戍、以黄叶自江村写自江村，写尽乱山成野戍、黄叶自江村之情。以山写景，苍凉而忧时，是「以山写景」的点睛之笔。
The second couplet writes the landscape of war through two images, and is the descriptive core of the poem. The tumbled hills have become wilderness garrisons says the rugged hills, once the ordinary hills of travel, now hold wilderness garrisons — the single word become is the pivot: the hills are unchanged in shape, yet their meaning has changed, for war has posted troops where once there were only paths. Yellow leaves drift by themselves in the river village says the yellow leaves falling of themselves on the river village — the word of themselves is especially exquisite: no wind, no traveler, the leaves fall on their own, writing the emptiness of the village, whose people have fled and whose thatched roofs have fallen. One line of garrisons, one of leaves: the human footprint of the camp and the natural drift of the leaves set off against each other; the garrisons are everywhere, the village is deserted, and the desolation of the age between them. The couplet writes the military occupation of the region and the abandonment of the villages in the same brush, the quiet of the fallen leaves making the martial presence the more oppressive.
带雨疏星见，回风绝岸喧。
Through the rain a few scattered stars appear; the whirling wind roars at the sheer bank.
带雨疏星见，回风绝岸喧。
Through the rain, a few scattered stars are seen; the backwind roars along the far-off bank.
此句写带雨疏星见，是全诗写带雨之态的关键。「带雨疏星见」写带雨疏星见，「带雨」写带雨、「疏星见」写疏星见；「回风绝岸喧」写回风绝岸喧，「回风」写回风、「绝岸喧」写绝岸喧。一句写带雨疏星见回风绝岸喧，以带雨疏星见写疏星见、以回风绝岸喧写绝岸喧，写尽带雨疏星见、回风绝岸喧之情。以雨写景，苍凉而忧时，是「以雨写景」的点睛之笔。
The third couplet returns from the broad prospect to the immediate surroundings of the moored boat, one still and one sounding, sharpening the desolation. Through the rain, a few scattered stars are seen says the rain still falling, yet through the gaps in the rain a few sparse stars appear; the sparse stars are faint, the word seen writing the narrow clearness between rain and cloud. The backwind roars along the far-off bank says the wind turning back along the shore, its roar on the distant bank; the word roars writes the violence of the wind, the far-off bank its distance. One sight, one sound: the sparse stars above, faint and few; the roaring wind below, violent and far. The couplet writes the first watch of the night on the river: rain, stars, wind, roar, and the smallness of the boat moored at the woodcutter's lodge in the midst of it all. Still, the wind's roar, paired with the wilderness garrisons of the preceding couplet, carries the unspoken sense that the age itself is roaring; the scene-writing serves the feeling throughout.
经过多战舰，茅屋几家存？
So many warships pass this way — how many thatched homes are left to survive?
经过多战舰，茅屋几家存？
On the way I pass so many warships; how many of the thatched huts are still standing?
结句写茅屋几家存，是全诗立意的落点。「经过多战舰」写经过多战舰，「经过」写经过、「多战舰」写多战舰；「茅屋几家存」写茅屋几家存，「茅屋几家」写茅屋几家、「存」写存。一句写经过多战舰茅屋几家存，以经过多战舰写多战舰、以茅屋几家存写几家存，写尽经过多战舰、茅屋几家存之情。以战写情，苍凉而忧时，是全诗最动人处，也是「以战写情」的点睛之笔。
The close lands the poem on its question, the point of the whole. On the way I pass so many warships states the fact plainly: the river this evening is crowded with government warships, war the everyday sight on the water. How many of the thatched huts are still standing? turns in a question: after these years of war, the river villages' thatched huts — how many still stand? The word how many is the heart of the line: not a rhetorical flourish, but the poet's own count as he moored, village by village, finding fewer huts, more ruins. The question is answered in the silence of the river — most are gone. The two lines, one of warships and one of huts, set the military machine against the people's dwellings, the many against the few; the poet's grief for the people of the region, and the quiet indignation of a scholar-poet in the war-torn late Ming, all rest in this question. It ends without an answer, and the answer is left to the desolate river itself.
Study
Word focus
Related Reading
Su Shi's Shui Diao Ge Tou — 'men have their partings and reunions; such things can never be made perfect' — rises from personal separation to a cosmic acceptance, grief transmuted by breadth of mind. Shi Runzhang's Mooring by the Woodcutter's Hut, with 'so many warships pass this way; how many thatched homes still survive?' and 'tangled hills have turned to wilderness outposts', keeps grief in the world: his question expects no consoling answer. One is Su Shi's expansive reconciliation, the other Shi's somber witness. Read together, they show two manners of 'lament for the times': both refuse shrillness, but Su Shi dissolves sorrow into acceptance while Shi lets it stand, plain as a thatched roof.
苏轼《水调歌头·明月几时有》「人有悲欢离合，月有阴晴圆缺，此事古难全」，写忧时感怀、苍凉旷达，是宋词长调的名篇；施闰章《泊樵舍》则以「经过多战舰，茅屋几家存」「乱山成野戍」写几家存、成野戍。两诗同写忧时感怀、苍凉旷达：一写人有悲欢离合、以悲欢写离合，一写经过多战舰茅屋几家存、以战舰写忧时；一为苏轼之旷达、一为施闰章之苍凉，并读正可见诗写「忧时感怀」的两种笔法，皆于忧时之中见苍凉。
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 · 同写江村凝望、苍凉清丽，一写对潇潇暮雨洒江天、一写带雨疏星见回风绝岸喧，皆于江村之中见凝望 Both fix a traveler's gaze on a river landscape of autumn desolation: Liu Yong on rain washing the river sky, Shi on stars and wind at a moored boat — each scene holds an watching heart.Liu Yong's Ba Sheng Gan Zhou — 'facing the soughing evening rain scattered over river and sky, one wash of clear autumn' — is the classic lyric of the wanderer reading autumn from a height, its desolation colored by homesickness. Shi Runzhang's poem, with 'through the rain a few scattered stars appear; the whirling wind roars at the sheer bank' and 'the flood subsiding, the water runs the faster', reads a river village from a moored boat, its desolation colored by war. One is Liu Yong's limpid pathos of travel, the other Shi's stark testimony. Read side by side, they show two ways of 'gazing on the river village': both let landscape carry feeling — Liu Yong's toward memory of home, Shi's toward the question of who is left to have one.
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」，写江村凝望、苍凉清丽，是宋词写羁旅的名篇；施闰章《泊樵舍》则以「带雨疏星见，回风绝岸喧」「涨减水愈急」写疏星见、水愈急。两诗同写江村凝望、苍凉清丽：一写对潇潇暮雨洒江天、以暮雨写清秋，一写带雨疏星见回风绝岸喧、以疏星写忧时；一为柳永之清丽、一为施闰章之苍凉，并读正可见诗写「江村凝望」的两种笔法，皆于江村之中见凝望。