前度刘郎 — “A person who returns to a place they once visited or abandoned”

Liu Yuxi (772-842) was a poet of the Mid-Tang Dynasty. Due to his involvement in Wang Shuwén's "Yongzhen Reform," he was demoted in 805 and sent to Langzhou (now Changde, Hunan) as a Sima (assistant prefect). Nine years later, at over forty years old, Liu Yuxi was recalled to Chang'an. Hearing that the thousands of peach trees at Xuandu Temple were in beautiful bloom, he went to admire them with friends and wrote the poem "Visiting Xuandu Temple": "The purple paths and red dust brush against one's face, everyone says they return from seeing flowers. At Xuandu Temple, thousands of peach trees, all planted after Liu Lang left." Because of this poem, he was again demoted, first to governor of Bozhou (Zunyi, Guizhou), then Lianzhou (Lianxian, Guangdong), and later transferred to Kuizhou (Fengjie, Sichuan) and Hezhou (Hexian, Anhui), before being dismissed from office.

Fourteen years later, Liu Yuxi was once again recalled to Chang'an. The bustling scene at Xuandu Temple from years past was gone: the thousands of peach trees had vanished, with only a few clusters of rapeseed flowers swaying in the spring breeze on the moss-covered ground. The poet was deeply moved and wrote another poem, "Revisiting Xuandu Temple": "Half the hundred-acre courtyard is covered in moss, the peach blossoms are completely gone, rapeseed flowers bloom. Where has the peach-planting Taoist priest gone? The Liu Lang of the previous visit has returned today!"