Du Mu's Qingming Poem is as follows:
The rain falls one after another during the Qingming Festival, and the pedestrians on the road want to break their souls. The shepherd boy pointed to the village of apricot blossoms.
Translation: At the time of the Qingming Festival, the rain was pouring down, and the traveler on the road was sad because he could not go home to sweep the graves. When he asked where there was an inn where he could have a drink and get out of the rain, the shepherd boy pointed to the apricot blossom village in the distance.
Appreciation: According to the Records of Jiangnan Tongzhi, Du Mu, when he was the assassin of Chizhou, used to go to the Apricot Blossom Village near Duhu Lake and Southeast Lake to drink wine. In the poem, the pedestrians, restaurants, shepherd boys and the apricot blossom village, together with the curved mountain road and spring rain, constitute a picture of "Qingming Smoke and Rain" with a lot of fun. This poem describes the typical weather characteristics of the Qingming Festival, and expresses the feelings of those who are away from their hometown and want to drown their sorrows in wine during the rainy Qingming Festival, which has both misery and hope.
The weather in Jiangnan during the Qingming season changes greatly, sometimes bright and sunny, sometimes rainy and smoky. The first line is closely related to the title of the poem, pointing out the characteristics of the weather at this time. Then the word "broken soul" is used to express the sadness of the travelers.
The custom of trekking with friends and visiting ancestors and tombs during the Qingming Festival is supposed to be a family reunion. However, the "pedestrians" in the poem were alone in a foreign land, rushing alone, feeling lonely and desolate, and catching up with the drizzling rain, which added a kind of inexplicable despondency and annoyance.