"Once the sea was difficult for water, it will always be amber" comes from Yuan Zhen's Five Thoughts (Part Two), a poet in the Tang Dynasty.
Original text:
Once I tasted the vast sea, I felt that the water in other places was pale; Once you have experienced the clouds in Wushan, you feel that the clouds elsewhere are eclipsed.
Hurried through the flowers, lazy to look back; This reason is partly because of the ascetic monk, and partly because of who you used to be.
I have been to the seaside, and there is not enough water in other places; Clouds in other places are not called clouds except Wushan Mountain. Hurried through the flowers, too lazy to look back; This reason is partly due to the abstinence of monks and partly because you have had it.
Writing background: In the 18th year of Zhenyuan in Tang Dezong (802), Wei Cong married Yuan Zhen at the age of 20. At that time, Yuan Zhen was not famous and suffered from poverty after marriage. She didn't complain at all, and Yuan Zhen loved her deeply. Seven years later, Wei Cong died of illness. After Wei Cong's death, Yuan Zhen wrote a lot of mourning works, which is one of the more famous ones.
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The most prominent feature of this poem is to express the hero's deep love for his lost sweetheart in a clever way. It uses water, clouds and flowers in succession, and it is written in a tortuous and euphemistic way, with far-reaching artistic conception and intriguing. The first two sentences, "Once the sea was difficult for water, it was always amber", and the sea was extremely deep and wide, which dwarfed the water elsewhere. Wushan faces Yunfeng, facing the Yangtze River, and the clouds are steaming.
"It's hard for water" and "it's not a cloud", which is of course Yuan Zhen's favorite thing to say to his wife, but the relationship between husband and wife like them is really rare. Yuan Zhen has a vivid description in the poem "Regret for the Past". So the third sentence says that he walked through the "flowers" and was too lazy to look, which shows that he has no attachment to women.