Chapter 749: Also Thinking of on a Rainy Night

Also thinking of on a rainy night.

March 29: Also thinking of on a rainy night.

Speaking of rainy nights, one inevitably thinks of that, and it makes one's heart churn—the little poem written by Tang people: "You ask when I will return, there is no set date; the Ba Shan night rain swells the autumn pool." At dusk the rain fell sparsely, and even late into the night it did not cease. Raindrops, from far to near, steadily struck the eaves, the doors and windows, and even the poet's sleeplessness.

In the sound of raindrops dripping, the poet sat alone facing the lone lamp, clear dreams hard to form, thoughts wandering: This continuous rain must have filled that pond to the brim?

Rain, when will you finally stop?

At this moment, the poet far from his homeland, prompted by the rain before him, thought of his hometown—was his hometown also raining? The poet's longing for home surged in the rustling rain; the feeling of returning home grew ever stronger.

When will I be able to return home?

When reunited with family, to tell them the flavor of this rainy night's longing, to let them taste it—what a wonderful wish that is!

Yu Qiuyu said: "One rainy night after another has turned the life journeys of many outstanding figures." This statement is a bit grandiose; we, being little‑heard of, find it hard to imagine examples of rainy nights turning the life journeys of outstanding figures; instead, on rainy nights we recall those amorous affairs. Yu the writer also said: "Since a single Rain can turn a military commander from victory to defeat, it can also make an Africa military person change course."

To put the writer's meaning plainly: one Rain can change a person's fate. This sounds almost unbelievable, hard to accept. If it is truly as the writer says, then throughout the year nearly a third of the time is spent in Rain, with countless millions of people surrounded by Rain—how many fates must be changed in the Rain!

Yu Qiuyu also said: On Rain nights, life and history hang in hesitation. Is it not the Tang Dynasty poet Du Fu who is hesitating on a Rain night? The hesitating great poet says: "For years my thin quilt has been cold as iron; my beloved child lies poorly, the mat split; at the bedhead the roof leaks, in the dry places the Rain threads like hemp, unceasing." The great poet, facing the wind and Rain outside the window, sees the "leaky roof" before him, and thinks not of himself but of the "cold‑scholar" like himself dwelling in a humble hut—

"How could we obtain thousands of vast halls to shelter all the cold scholars of the world, that they may all beam with joy?"

This Du Fu, the great poet, has a breadth of mind enough: he himself has no house to live in, dwelling in a broken thatched hut at the foot of a remote mountain; whenever it Rains, the hut he lives in leaks everywhere, impossible to avoid. Just as the poet, battered by Wind and Rain, unable to sleep—"Long night soaked, how to get through?"—he thinks not of himself but of the world's cold scholars: "How could we obtain thousands of vast halls to shelter all the cold scholars of the world, that they may all beam with joy?" Wind and Rain cannot shake it, steady as a mountain.

This poet is too great; his spirit of "benefiting none for oneself, solely benefiting others" is truly moving.

The poet's great breadth of mind and his spirit of selfless dedication are forever beyond our reach. We, the ant‑like folk who toil day and night for mere clothing and food, think only of ourselves: if we had a house, how we would decorate and beautify it—"Sweep only the snow before our own door, what care we for the frost on others' tiles?" What difference is there between us and the birds that fly east and west for food?