Based on the prelude, we may conclude that Dongpo was about 47 years old when he completed this poem, thus the year could be somewhere 1983/84, about the last year of his banishment in Huangzhou.
This poem is another example of Su Shi’s sentimental poems, romantic and sophisticated in the vibes, though outshined by his heroic poems. The rhyming wave flows from the beauty’s secret bath pool of fresh flowers to her chamber, and to the garden in the company of her lover the king, then extended to the sky scene, hinting the happy night about to end, then back to the garden. The theme is explored further with the season and the year to deepen the sentiment that nothing gold can stay. It’s a sigh from the beauty but also a sigh from Dongpo who strongly felt his prime years were so wasted there at Huangzhou, and his ambition was as if gone with the west wind. Such was the tune of his writings during his five-year banishment, full of regrets yet still wishing to be summoned back to the Court, as you could find it in his “Meditating on the Past at Red Cliff” and also his prose poems on his boat drinks at Red Cliff (前后赤壁赋）.
