POEM
望庐山瀑布Wàng Lú Shān Pù BùThe Waterfall at Mount Lu
- Dynasty
- Tang
- Author
- 李白 Lǐ Bái (Li Bai)
- Genre
- 七言绝句
- Lines
- 4
- Era
- c. 8th century
THE POEM — LINE BY LINE
Tap a line for word-by-word gloss.
#1日照香炉生紫烟Rì zhào xiāng lú shēng zǐ yānSunlight strikes Incense-Burner Peak and purple mist rises.word by word
日rìsun照zhàoshine on香xiāngfragrant炉lúcenser; burner生shēngproduce; give rise to紫zǐpurple烟yānmist; smoke#2遥看瀑布挂前川Yáo kàn pù bù guà qián chuānFrom afar the waterfall hangs before the river like a curtain.word by word
遥yáofar off; from afar看kànsee; look at瀑pùwaterfall (瀑布: waterfall)布bùcloth; spread (瀑布: waterfall)挂guàhang前qiánbefore; in front of川chuānriver; stream#3飞流直下三千尺Fēi liú zhí xià sān qiān chǐIt flies, pours, and plunges straight down three thousand feet —word by word
#4疑是银河落九天Yí shì yín hé luò jiǔ tiānas if the Milky Way were falling from the highest heaven.word by word
疑yísuspect; think mistakenly是shìto be银yínsilver河hériver (银河: the Milky Way)落luòfall; drop九jiǔnine (九天: the highest heaven)天tiānsky; heaven
POEM IN PLAIN ENGLISH
A plain-English guide, not a literary translationSunlight strikes Incense-Burner Peak and purple mist rises from it; from afar the waterfall hangs before the river like a cloth of white. It flies, it pours, it plunges straight down three thousand feet — as if the Milky Way were falling out of the highest heaven. Li Bai does not describe the waterfall so much as make it a piece of the sky; the exaggeration is the point, and it has made this the most famous waterfall poem in Chinese. This is a plain-English guide, not a literary translation.
BACKGROUND & IMAGERY
Li Bai (701-762) wrote this on a visit to Mount Lu in Jiangxi, and the poem is taught to virtually every Chinese schoolchild. 香炉 (Incense-Burner) is the name of the peak the waterfall pours from — the poet plays on the name by turning it back into a real censer that 'produces' purple smoke. 三千尺 and 九天 are both conventional numbers for 'immeasurably high', not measurements.
TRUST & SOURCES
- Reviewed by
- AI-assisted editorial review
- Last reviewed
- 2026-08-15
Sources
- 《全唐诗》（中华书局点校本）通行文本；部编版语文教材同文
- 本站飞花令语料 feihualing.db（poem 396995） — 文本以通行本为准，库本仅行级参考（库本与通行本一致）
- Original English paraphrase & gloss — 本站原创学习释义，非文学译本（plain-English guide, not a literary translation）
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