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唐 Tang · 诗 Poem

杨柳枝词

Willow Branch Song

白居易

Bai Juyi

咏物ode to objects 愁思melancholy 抒情lyric

一树春风千万枝，嫩于金色软于丝。
永丰西角荒园里，尽日无人属阿谁。

A single tree in the spring wind, ten thousand branches—tenderer than golden hue, softer than silk.
In the wild garden at the west corner of Yongfeng, all day long no one comes—to whom does it belong?

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Meaning

The quatrain first extols the willow's beauty: a single tree in the spring wind puts forth myriad branches, tenderer than gold and softer than silk. Then it turns abruptly—the willow stands in a desolate garden in a remote corner of Yongfeng Ward, ignored all day long, belonging to no one. The contrast between such beauty and such neglect carries the lament for talented and lovely beings who never meet their due.

一株柳树在春风中垂下千万枝条，嫩得胜过金色，软得胜过丝线。可它却长在永丰坊西角的荒园里，整日无人过问，不知究竟属于谁人。

Appreciation

The poem's power comes from its sharp structural contrast: the first two lines exhaust the willow's beauty in color, texture, and form, while the last two plunge into its desolate situation. The more beautiful the willow, the more pitiable its abandonment; the longer the neglect, the deeper the melancholy. Closing with the colloquial question 'to whom does it belong?', left unanswered, the poem achieves grief without a word of grief—meaning that outlasts its words, the classic manner of object-chanting verse that neither clings to nor forsakes its object.

【白话串讲】白居易写杨柳枝词：“一树春风千万枝，嫩于金色软于丝”——柳条嫩如金丝。“永丰西角荒园里，尽日无人属阿谁”——永丰坊荒园里的柳，没人理会。他借柳写不遇。【意象与手法】前两句以「千万枝」写柳之繁茂，以「嫩于金色软于丝」写柳之鲜嫩柔美，一气写足其美；后两句陡转，以「荒园」「无人」「属阿谁」写其冷落弃置。以乐景衬哀情，美与寂的强烈反差，正是此诗动人之处。【情感与主旨】这是一首咏物诗，借柳抒怀：柳之美而弃置荒园，犹如才美之士沉沦不遇。一说作于白居易晚年居洛阳时，见永丰坊荒园垂柳而叹其无人赏识，亦隐然寄寓自身及才士的际遇之慨。【名句点睛】「一树春风千万枝，嫩于金色软于丝」写柳之美，色、形、质、态兼备，是咏柳名句；「尽日无人属阿谁」以问句收束，不答而怨自深，言有尽而意无穷。

Background

Bai Juyi (772–846), courtesy name Letian, sobriquet Xiangshan Jushi, of Xiagui (present-day Weinan, Shaanxi), was the leader of the mid-Tang New Yuefu movement, and the 'Willow Branch Song' was written in his later years while living in Luoyang. 'Willow Branch' was an old Sui dynasty tune admitted to the imperial music bureau in Tang; in the mid-Tang, Bai Juyi and Liu Yuxi revived it in exchanged seven-character quatrains and made it a new voice. This poem, one of eight 'Willow Branch Songs,' dates roughly from the Kaicheng era (836–840), when the retired poet saw, in a desolate garden at the west corner of Yongfeng Ward, a weeping willow whose green branches stirred with no one to admire them, and wrote this poem upon it. Legend has it that the poem later reached the palace; Emperor Xuanzong of Tang (some say Wenzong) asked where the Yongfeng willow stood and ordered two branches transplanted into the forbidden park, whereupon Bai Juyi wrote 'Moved to Learn That the Yongfeng Willow Was Ordered Transplanted into the Forbidden Park' to record the event—the willow made precious by the poem, the poem spread by the willow, showing how widely the poem was already known in its day. As for the times: in Bai Juyi's last years the dynasty was declining amid factional strife and regional warlordism, and the sighs of overlooked talent were general. This poem, chanting a beautiful willow left to waste, has always been read as pity for submerged worthies and a veiled self-lament—an object poem of deep and distant commitment, showing that even in late-life ease Bai Juyi kept a deep fund of feeling. In twenty-eight characters, beauty first and desolation after, the melancholy shows itself in the contrast—a model of deep feeling in plain language among Bai Juyi's late object poems.

白居易（772—846），字乐天，号香山居士，下邽（今陕西渭南）人，中唐新乐府运动的领袖，《杨柳枝词》为其晚年居洛阳时所作。《杨柳枝》本为隋代旧曲，唐时入教坊，中唐以后白居易与刘禹锡以之作七绝唱和，遂成新声。此诗为白居易《杨柳枝词》八首之一，约作于开成年间（836—840），时诗人退居洛阳，见永丰坊西角荒园中一株垂柳，绿条拂拂而无人赏识，遂作此咏之。传说此诗后传入宫中，唐宣宗（一说文宗）闻而问永丰柳所在，命人取两枝植于禁苑，白居易又作《诏取永丰柳植禁苑感赋》以记其事——柳因诗而贵，诗因柳而传，可见此诗当时已广为人知。就时代而言，白居易晚年，唐王朝国势日衰，朋党倾轧、藩镇割据，士人怀才不遇之叹普遍；此诗咏柳之美丽而弃置，历来被读作对才士沉沦的怜惜与自伤，是咏物诗中寄托遥深之作，亦见乐天晚年于闲适中仍存的一份深挚感慨。全诗二十八字，前写柳之美、后写柳之寂，对照之中自见怅惘，正是乐天晚年咏物小诗中以浅语写深情的典范。

Art

The poem's art lies in its architecture of contrast and its precision of diction. The first two lines exhaust the willow's beauty: 'A single tree in the spring wind, ten thousand branches' first gives the lone tree's solitary stance, then the teeming abundance of its myriad hanging sprays alive in the spring wind; 'tenderer than golden hue, softer than silk' goes a layer further, the double comparative rendering its texture—'tender' and 'soft' for its quality, 'golden hue' for the goose-yellow of new buds, 'silk' for the fine, resilient length of the strands—color, quality, form, and posture in a single stroke. The last two lines turn the brush sharply: 'the wild garden at the west corner of Yongfeng' names a remote, untrodden place, and 'all day long no one comes—to whom does it belong?' writes its unfriended lot—so lovely a willow, growing in a waste garden, unclaimed by anyone. Beauty before, desolation after; flourishing before, discard after: the contrast is extreme—the lovelier the willow, the more pitiable its discard; the deeper the neglect, the keener the rue. The closing line ends on a question, unanswered, and the resentment deepens beyond words—meaning inexhaustible though the words end. Four lines, two turns, chanting the object without clinging to it, lodging feeling without a trace—the model of the object-poem's 'neither touching nor leaving,' and a gem of deep design within Bai Juyi's plain and easy style.

此诗咏物，妙在章法的对比与字法的精工。前两句极写柳之美：「一树春风千万枝」先以「一树」点出单株独立之姿，继以「千万枝」写其枝条繁茂、纷披垂拂之盛，春风中生机盎然；「嫩于金色软于丝」更进一层，以「嫩」「软」二字状柳之质地，「金色」写初生柳芽的鹅黄之色，「丝」写柳条细长柔韧之态，色、质、形、态一笔写尽。两句连用比较（嫩于、软于），以金、丝二物为喻，精美绝伦。后两句笔锋骤转：「永丰西角荒园里」写其所在之地的荒僻冷落，「尽日无人属阿谁」写其无人垂顾的寂寞身世——如此娇美之柳，竟生于荒园、无人过问，不知属于谁人。前美后寂、前荣后弃，对照极为强烈：柳愈美，则弃愈可惜；弃愈甚，则情愈怅惘。末句以问句收束，不答而怨自深，言有尽而意无穷。全诗四句两转，咏物而不滞于物，寄托而不着痕迹，正是咏物诗「不即不离」的典范，亦是白居易平易诗风中见深致的佳作。

Allusions

The poem is a small object-chant with few allusions, but its imagery all has tradition to trace. First, the willow: willow puns on 'stay,' and the ancients broke willows at parting to express the wish to detain; the Book of Songs ('When I left, the willows were fresh and green') opened the willow's entry into poetry, the Han yuefu had the tune 'Breaking the Willow,' and Tang poems made willow-parting a common image (Wang Wei's 'the willow color fresh at the guest lodge'). Bai Juyi writes the willow without a word of parting, chanting its lot alone—striking a new vein within a traditional image. Second, 'golden hue' and 'silk': the goose-yellow of new leaves and the thread-like branches had long been compared by Tang poets (He Zhizhang's 'ten thousand strands hang down like green silk ribbons'); Bai Juyi's 'tenderer than golden hue, softer than silk,' cast in the comparative, is fresher still. Third, 'Yongfeng Ward': a ward of Luoyang, named plainly in the poem and made famous by the willow, so that 'the Yongfeng willow' itself became an allusion, often used by later poets writing of willows or of Luoyang. Fourth, 'to whom' (ashui): Han-Wei colloquial, common in the yuefu, and the use of the spoken register fits both the folk origin of the 'Willow Branch' tune and Bai Juyi's plain style that 'even an old woman could understand.' From willow to person, from beauty to neglect, the poem lodges its feelings through things and wins the object-poem's essence; and that the title 'willow' carries the double sense of parting and of personal fate, and the poet chose the latter and set the former aside, shows his particular burden of feeling.

此诗为咏物小诗，用典不多而意象皆有传统可寻。其一，「杨柳」：柳与「留」谐音，古人折柳赠别以寄留念之意，《诗经·采薇》「昔我往矣，杨柳依依」已开杨柳入诗之端，汉乐府有《折杨柳》曲，唐诗中折柳送别更成习见意象（王维「客舍青青柳色新」）。白居易此诗写柳而不写送别，专咏柳之身世，是于传统意象中别开生面。其二，「金色」「丝」：初生柳叶鹅黄如金，柳条细长如丝，以色喻柳、以丝拟条，唐人咏柳多有之（贺知章「万条垂下绿丝绦」），白居易「嫩于金色软于丝」以比较出之，更见新巧。其三，「永丰坊」：洛阳坊里名，诗中实指，因柳而名传后世，「永丰柳」遂成典故，后人咏柳咏洛阳者多用之。其四，「属阿谁」：阿谁为汉魏以来口语，乐府诗中常见，以口语入诗，正合《杨柳枝》本为民歌的渊源，亦见白居易「老妪能解」的平易诗风。全诗由柳及人、由美及寂，托物寄慨，深得咏物诗之三昧。且「杨柳」一题本身兼具送别与身世双重意蕴，诗人取身世一面而舍送别一面，亦见其别有怀抱。

Commentary

The 'Willow Branch Song' is a jewel among Bai Juyi's object poems and a willow poem celebrated through the ages. In twenty-eight characters the beauty of the first half is set against the desolation of the second, and the tension between them generates the emotion: the lovelier the willow, the more to be pitied its discard; the longer ignored, the deeper the melancholy of its being unclaimed. The closing line, 'all day long no one comes—to whom does it belong?', ends on a question, grieving without speaking grief, pitying without naming pity—a model of 'words that end while meaning is inexhaustible.' The poem has always been read as a lodged lament: pity for submerged talent, sorrow for wasted beauty, or self-consolation—though the readings differ, all circle the four characters 'worth unseen by the age,' showing how deep its commitment runs. Set beside He Zhizhang's 'Ode to the Willow,' which purely celebrates the tree, Bai Juyi's poem finds sorrow within beauty—a miniature of the shift from High Tang object-verse that delighted in things to mid- and late-Tang verse that lodged laments in them. And the legend of the willow transplanted into the forbidden park by imperial order added a famous anecdote, giving the poem its unique place among willow poems, recited without cease for a thousand years. The final question, with its folk-song air, makes plain language endlessly flavorful—this and 'Lush, lush the grass upon the plain' stand as Bai Juyi's best-loved object quatrains.

《杨柳枝词》是白居易咏物诗的精品，亦是历代传诵的咏柳名篇。全诗二十八字，前写柳之美，后写柳之寂，美与寂的对照构成巨大的情感张力：柳愈娇美，愈觉弃置之可惜；弃置愈久，愈增无人过问之怅惘。末句「尽日无人属阿谁」以问句收束，不言怨而怨自深，不言惜而惜愈切，正是「言有尽而意无穷」的典范。此诗历来被视为咏物寄慨之作：或谓怜才士之沉沦，或谓伤美物之弃置，或谓借柳自伤，众说虽异而皆不离「才美不遇」四字，可见其寄托之深。与贺知章《咏柳》之盛赞柳之美相比，白居易此诗于美中见悲，是咏物诗由盛唐的体物悦情转向中晚唐的托物寄慨的缩影。而柳因诗传、诗因柳贵，永丰柳植禁苑的传说，更为此诗添了一段佳话，使其在咏柳诗中独标一格，千百年来传诵不衰。末句一问，尤见民歌本色，浅语之中情味隽永，遂与「离离原上草」同为白诗最脍炙人口的咏物绝句。

Prosody

Form Seven-character quatrain (lyric to the yuefu tune 'Willow Branch')七言绝句（乐府《杨柳枝》曲辞）

Rhyme A single level-tone rhyme throughout in the zhi group: 'branches' (zhi) opens the rhyme in line 1, 'silk' (si) in line 2 and 'whom' (shui) in line 4 carry it—all in the zhi division of level-tone rhymes; the light, supple rhyme suits the willow's softness.通押平声「支」韵：首句「枝」起韵，二句「丝」、四句「谁」押韵，皆属平水韵上平四支部，一韵到底，韵脚轻柔流丽，正合杨柳之柔美。

Tone pattern A regulated quatrain of the recent style, tonally correct and melodious; the first line takes the rhyme, lines 1–2 rhyme closely like fingers on silk strings, and the closing rhyme on 'whom' leaves its echo lingering.近体七绝，平仄合律，声调婉转；首句入韵，前两句连押「枝」「丝」，音韵密丽，如丝弦轻拨；后两句「谁」字收韵，余音袅袅。

Reading note The poem is formally a seven-character quatrain of the recent style, but its content derives from the yuefu tune 'Willow Branch.' The tune was originally a Sui folk melody, admitted to the imperial music bureau in Tang, and in the mid-Tang Bai Juyi and Liu Yuxi first set it in quatrain form, making it a new voice—recent-style precision carrying folk-song flavor, which is the special character of both the tune and this poem. In rhyme, the poem keeps to the zhi division of level-tone rhymes: zhi, si, shui—one rhyme throughout. The zhi sounds are clear, fine, and supple, in accord with the willow's swaying lightness and the poet's tenderness; the first line opens the rhyme, lines 1–2 rhyme densely (zhi, si), the measure fluent like a breeze through willows, and lines 3–4 close on 'shui,' the colloquial rhyme leaving a lingering, inexhaustible melancholy. In tonal pattern, the poem keeps the strict quatrain form without a single faulty character: the first line reads oblique-oblique-level-level-level-oblique-level, its irregularity redeemed naturally; the remaining lines turn melodiously in the folk manner. Recent-style body, folk-song soul—refinement and grace united: the mark of the mid-Tang 'Willow Branch' style in maturity, and the forerunner of the fresh vein of late-Tang object quatrains.此诗体制为七言绝句，属近体诗，而其内容渊源则为乐府《杨柳枝》曲。盖《杨柳枝》本隋代民间曲调，唐时入教坊，中唐白居易、刘禹锡始以七绝体为之，遂成新声——以近体之严整，写民歌之情调，是此调的特色，亦此诗的特色。就用韵言，全诗押平水韵上平四支部：枝、丝、谁三韵，一韵到底。支韵字音清细柔婉，正与杨柳轻飏之态、诗人怜惜之情相谐；首句「枝」字起韵，前两句「枝」「丝」连押，韵脚密丽，音节流美，如微风拂柳；三四句「谁」字收韵，且「阿谁」以口语押韵，余音袅袅，怅惘不尽。就平仄言，全诗合七绝正格，无一字失律：首句「一树春风千万枝」平仄为仄仄平平平仄平，拗救自然；「嫩于金色软于丝」「永丰西角荒园里」「尽日无人属阿谁」，声调婉转，正合民歌风味。以律诗之体，行民歌之情，文质彬彬，是中唐《杨柳枝》体成熟的标志，亦开晚唐咏物小诗清新一路的先声。

Line by line

一树春风千万枝，嫩于金色软于丝。

A single tree in the spring wind with ten thousand branches—tenderer than golden hue and softer than silk.

一株柳树在春风中垂下千万枝条，嫩得胜过金色，软得胜过丝线。

One willow in the spring wind has ten thousand branches; tenderer than gold, softer than silk.

起句即写尽柳之美，是全诗咏物之精魂。「一树春风千万枝」七字有三层写意：一树者，单株独立，非成林成片，为后文「荒园」中孤柳的处境埋下伏笔；春风者，点出时节与生机，柳因春风而舒展；千万枝者，极写枝条之繁密纷披，如绿丝垂挂，画面丰茂。「嫩于金色软于丝」以比较句写柳之质地：嫩于金色，写初生柳芽的鹅黄鲜嫩，比金色更嫩；软于丝，写柳条之柔韧纤长，比丝线更软。「金」「丝」皆人间至美之物，而柳犹过之，则柳之美艳，不言可知。两句以色写柳、以质写柳，声色俱丽；而「嫩」「软」二字，更是写尽了春柳娇柔可人的神韵，为后两句的弃置之叹蓄足反差——正是写足柳之美，后文的无人赏识才格外令人痛惜。

The opening line exhausts the willow's beauty, the poem's soul of thing-praising. One willow in the spring wind has ten thousand branches has three layers: one tree means a single, independent willow, not a grove, planting the伏笔 for the lonely willow in the waste garden below. Spring wind fixes the season and vitality; the willow uncoils in the spring breeze. Ten thousand branches exaggerates the branches' thick, spreading luxuriance, like green silk hanging, the picture rich. Tenderer than gold, softer than silk writes the willow's texture in comparison: tenderer than gold writes the new shoots' yellow tenderness, tenderer than gold itself; softer than silk writes the branches' pliancy and length, softer than silk thread. Gold and silk are the world's loveliest things, yet the willow surpasses both - the willow's beauty is self-evident. The two lines write the willow through color and texture, sound and color both fair; tender and soft exhaust the spring willow's charming, lovable spirit, storing full contrast for the latter two's discarded sigh - precisely by writing the willow's beauty to the full, the later no one appreciating it is all the more lamentable.

永丰西角荒园里，尽日无人属阿谁。

It stands in the wild garden at the west corner of Yongfeng, all day long with no one to see it—to whom can it belong?

这柳却长在永丰坊西角的荒园里，整日无人过问，不知属于谁人。

In the deserted garden at the west corner of Yongfeng, all day long no one asks - to whom does she belong?

后两句笔锋陡转，由柳之美跌入柳之寂，是全诗寄慨所在。「永丰西角荒园里」写其所在：永丰坊是洛阳里坊，西角是坊之僻隅，荒园更是人迹罕至之地——如此娇美之柳，竟生于荒僻之园，美与境的落差，令人惜之。「尽日无人属阿谁」更进一层：整日无人垂顾，不知它究竟属于谁人。「属阿谁」三字以口语出之，问得天真而怅惘：柳之美固无人赏识，柳之归属亦无人过问，一株名柳竟如弃物，其寂寞可知。此句以问作结，不答而怨自深；且「无人」与「千万枝」的繁华、「阿谁」与「一树」的孤单，处处与前两句对照，美与寂的张力贯穿全诗。咏物至此，已由柳及人：才美之士沉沦不遇，犹此荒园之柳，尽日无人属阿谁，怅惘无限，令人低回。

The latter two lines' brush turns abruptly, from the willow's beauty into the willow's loneliness, the poem's lodged emotion's place. In the deserted garden at the west corner of Yongfeng writes its location: Yongfeng ward is a Luoyang ward; the west corner its secluded nook; the waste garden a place men seldom pass - such a lovely willow, yet born in a waste garden; the gap between beauty and setting is lamentable. All day long no one asks - to whom does she belong? goes a step further: all day no one's glance, and who indeed does she belong to? To whom uses colloquial speech, the question innocent yet wistful: the willow's beauty unappreciated, the willow's ownership unattended; a famous willow like a discarded thing - its loneliness is plain. This line closes in a question, unanswered yet grievance deep; and no one set against ten thousand branches's splendor, to whom set against one tree's loneliness - everywhere contrasting with the first two lines, the tension of beauty and loneliness running through the poem. Thing-praising here has passed from willow to man: the talented sinking unrecognized, like this willow in the waste garden, all day no one asks - to whom does she belong? infinite wistfulness, lingering.

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千万枝 'Ten thousand branches' exaggerates the single tree's teeming, curtain-like sprays, its very abundance laid up as a foil for the later line's 'no one all day long.' 「一树春风千万枝」之「千万枝」三字，写柳之繁茂，是后文弃置之叹的反衬之笔。千万者，极言其多，枝条纷披垂拂、密如帘幕，一幅春柳图宛然在目；而冠以「一树」，则万千枝条皆出一株——柳之美不在成林，而在孤株独艳，愈显其美之集中、之出众。数字连用，「千万」二字琅琅上口，与「一树」的奇偶相间形成节奏的起伏，读来如见柳丝摇曳。更妙的是，「千万枝」的繁华与后句「尽日无人」的冷落构成强烈反差：枝条愈繁，则无人赏之愈可惜；繁华与寂寞集于一柳，正是全诗情感的张力所在。若易为「万条」「千条」，则一树之孤、反差之烈俱减；「千万枝」以极数写极盛，为全诗立骨，亦为下文的「荒园无人」蓄足反衬之势。

嫩 'Tender' (nen) catches the goose-yellow freshness of new buds in both color and touch—the poem-eye of the willow's beauty and the seed of its pitiable fragility. 「嫩于金色软于丝」之「嫩」字，是写柳之色与质的诗眼，兼有色感与触感。「嫩」本形容初生之物柔脆鲜美，此处移以写柳：柳芽初绽，鹅黄浅碧，如婴儿肌肤，此谓色嫩；枝条新抽，柔脆易折，如新丝初成，此谓质嫩。以「嫩」与「金色」相连，则柳色之鲜亮娇媚如在目前——不是浓烈的金黄，而是初生鹅黄的浅嫩；再与「软于丝」对举，则柳条之柔媚细长可触可感。一个「嫩」字，将春柳初生的生命感写得淋漓尽致，正是贺知章「二月春风似剪刀」之后咏柳的又一妙笔。而嫩者易折、美者易逝，柳之嫩美，亦暗伏其遭遇之可悯——娇嫩如斯而弃置荒园，愈增人之怜惜，字里行间已为后文之叹埋下伏笔，炼字之妙，正在于此。

属阿谁 'To whom does it belong' uses the Han-Wei colloquial ashui, whose naive, rueful question closes the poem unanswered and carries the whole lament for unrecognized worth. 「尽日无人属阿谁」之「属阿谁」三字，以口语入诗，是全诗情感的点睛之笔。属者，归属之谓；阿谁者，谁人之谓，为汉魏以来乐府民歌中的习见口语（如《古诗十九首》「阿谁」之问）。以口语入诗，一则合《杨柳枝》本为民歌曲调的本色，令全诗平易近人、琅琅上口，正是白居易「老妪能解」诗风的体现；二则「阿谁」之问，问得天真而怅惘——如此娇美之柳，竟无人过问、不知归属，一问之中，怜惜、怅惘、不平诸情并集。若易为「属何人」「归谁家」，则文雅有余而民歌之味尽失。三字收束全诗，不答而怨自深：柳之美愈写得足，此问愈觉沉痛；咏物至此，已由柳及人，才美不遇之叹，尽在这轻轻一问之中，言有尽而意无穷。