Song Dynasty
长相思·长相思
长相思，长相思。
若问相思甚了期，除非相见时。
长相思，长相思。
欲把相思说似谁，浅情人不知。
Translation
Long longing, long longing. If one asks when such longing will ever end, it can only be when the lovers meet. Long longing, long longing. To whom could I speak of this yearning? Those whose feelings are shallow would never understand.
Analysis
This lyric is extremely brief, built almost entirely from repetition and questions. That spareness is precisely its strength. The repeated phrase 'long longing' is both the tune title and the emotional motion of the poem: longing circles back on itself and cannot be dismissed. The line 'If one asks when longing will end, only when we meet' states the condition with painful clarity. Time, advice, and consolation cannot end it; only encounter can. In the second half, the repetition returns, but the feeling moves inward. The speaker asks whom such longing could be told to, and answers that shallow-hearted people would not understand. The poem therefore draws a boundary between ordinary feeling and deep fidelity. With almost no imagery, Yan Jidao creates the sound of longing itself: repeated, private, and unresolved.
About the Author
Yan Jidao, courtesy name Shuyuan and literary name Xiaoshan, was a Northern Song lyricist from Linchuan in Fuzhou and the seventh son of Yan Shu. Born into a distinguished family, he nevertheless lived through disappointment and decline. His ci often return to past gatherings, singers, music, separation, and memory, setting present loneliness against vanished splendor. Rather than argue, his poems move through dream, recollection, and the ache of what cannot be recovered.