Song Dynasty
Dreaming of the South · Late in the Third Month
Wu Wenying
三月暮，花落更情浓。
人去秋千闲挂月，马停杨柳倦嘶风。
堤畔画船空。
恹恹醉，长日小帘栊。
宿燕夜归银烛外，流莺声在绿阴中。
无处觅残红。
Translation
The third month is ending; as flowers fall, feeling grows even deeper. The person is gone, and the swing hangs idly in the moonlight. A horse stands by the willows, neighing wearily into the wind. Beside the embankment, the painted boat is empty. Drowsy and heavy with wine, I pass the long day beside a small curtained window. At night, the roosting swallows return beyond the silver candlelight. The wandering orioles' song still sounds from deep within the green shade. Yet nowhere can I find the last traces of fallen red blossoms.
Analysis
This lyric is about late spring, but more precisely about the emptiness that follows spring's passing. The opening phrase, 'The third month is ending,' places the poem at the threshold where spring is almost gone. What remains is not freshness, but afterimage. 'As flowers fall, feeling grows even deeper' gives the emotional logic of the poem. The falling of flowers does not end feeling; it intensifies it. Beauty becomes more powerful at the moment it disappears. Loss deepens attachment. The first stanza describes an outdoor world after departure. 'The person is gone, and the swing hangs idly in the moonlight' is especially poignant. A swing usually suggests spring play, youth, and movement. But after the person leaves, it becomes an empty object, suspended under the moon. Its stillness is the trace of absence. The tired horse by the willows adds sound and fatigue to the scene. The painted boat by the embankment is also empty. These objects once belonged to movement, pleasure, and companionship; now they are abandoned signs of what has ended. The second stanza moves indoors. The speaker is drowsy with wine, facing a long day behind a small curtain. This is not joyful intoxication, but a languid, melancholy attempt to pass time. The swallows and orioles show that spring has not entirely vanished. Swallows return at night beyond the candlelight; orioles still sing from the green shade. Yet these signs are distant and partial. The season is present only as scattered sound and shadow. The final line, 'Nowhere can I find the last traces of fallen red blossoms,' closes the poem with disappearance. 'Fallen red' means the remaining petals, but it also suggests the last traces of spring, love, pleasure, and past companionship. The search fails. What is gone cannot be recovered. The poem is characteristic of Wu Wenying's style: dense, refined, and dreamlike. Instead of stating grief directly, he weaves it through objects — a swing, moonlight, willows, a horse, an empty boat, curtains, candles, swallows, orioles, and vanished blossoms.
About the Author
Wu Wenying, courtesy name Junte and literary name Mengchuang, was a Southern Song ci poet from Siming. He spent much of his life as a private secretary and literary dependent in elite circles, without achieving high official rank. His lyrics are known for their dense imagery, ornate elegance, intricate structure, and dreamlike shifts of time and space. He often wrote of memory, parting, late spring, former travels, and romantic loss. His style, known as 'Mengchuang ci,' is one of the most refined and complex in the late Song lyric tradition. His famous works include 'Feng Ru Song · Listening to Wind and Rain Past Qingming,' 'Tang Duo Ling · Where Is Sorrow Made,' and 'Ying Ti Xu · Late Spring Reflections.'