“ In this poem, "Biting east wind" is a metaphor for traditional Chinese view about women. This view breaks his first marriage. "Glorious book" is another metaphor for his ambition of unifying China. But he doesn't seem to be successful in either of them (marriage and career) . He also uses antithesis, which is very popular in Chinese poetry. It matches both sound and sense in two poetic lines, like "a chest of sorrow" pairing "years of separation" and "paramount promise" pairing "glorious book". The sounds are perfectly matching each other in Chinese. ”
