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175<br />
六 月 未 春 衣<br />
21<br />
In the sixth month and no Spring clothes to wear.<br />
(Cen Shen, “Parting from Qi Le at Lintao Guesthouse”, lines 1-4)<br />
Despite its popularity as a trope for expressing frequent feelings <strong>of</strong> homesickness, Cen Shen's frontier<br />
poems were still clearly able to monopolize borderland postal services with a wide range <strong>of</strong> “letters<br />
from/to home”, be they 乡 信 (xiang xin), 家 书 (jia shu) or 家 信 (jia xin) 22 , whose receipt or<br />
composition was suggestive <strong>of</strong> a pining for familiar places:<br />
西 向 轮 台 万 里 余<br />
23<br />
也 知 乡 信 日 应 疏<br />
West towards Luntai is over ten thousand li,<br />
I also know that letters from home will be scarcer<br />
by the day.<br />
(“When Heading to Beiting and Passing Long Mountain I Think <strong>of</strong> Home”, lines 1-2)<br />
送 子 军 中 饮<br />
24<br />
家 书 醉 里 题<br />
Sending you <strong>of</strong>f with drinks in the army camp,<br />
In drunkenness I compose a letter home.<br />
(“In the Desert: Sending Off Administrative Assistant Li on His Return to the Capital”,<br />
lines 7-8)<br />
风 从 帝 乡 来<br />
The wind arrives from the capital,<br />
25<br />
不 异 家 信 通 It is not different from receiving a letter from home. 26<br />
(“At the Anxi Guesthouse and Thinking <strong>of</strong> Chang'an”, lines 3-4)<br />
With about half <strong>of</strong> Cen Shen's frontier works addressing some aspect <strong>of</strong> homesickness, 27 letters<br />
21<br />
“Lintao keshe liubie Qi Si” 临 洮 客 舍 留 别 祁 四 by Cen Shen. See CSJJZ, p. 97.<br />
22<br />
All <strong>of</strong> which are variants <strong>of</strong> “letters from home”.<br />
23<br />
CSJJZ, p. 141.<br />
24<br />
CSJJZ, p. 83.<br />
25<br />
CSJJZ, p. 85.<br />
26<br />
The letter here is more metaphor than paper but present nonetheless.<br />
27<br />
Yan Fuling, “Biansaishi xianglian”, p. 76. Yan's essay also bifurcates homesickness in frontier poetry between feelings<br />
originating from scholars serving on the frontier through non-combat service and those <strong>of</strong> soldiers longing for home, the<br />
second <strong>of</strong>ten an imaginary perspective affected by poets unfamiliar with the harsh realities <strong>of</strong> the borderlands. Scholarly<br />
homesickness, according to Yan's analysis, was <strong>of</strong>ten dependent on the likelihood <strong>of</strong> achieving personal success through<br />
employment at the frontier: when optimistic, tremors <strong>of</strong> homesickness were weak; when disappointed at not receiving
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