This concept refers to poems whose content and emotion are both profound and pensive, with rising and falling tones. The concept is used by later generations to summarize the characteristics of the poetry of Du Fu ( 712-770 ), a poet from the Tang Dynasty. Du Fu’s long held concerns for the country and its people made him feel deeply pensive, which gives his work a wide ranging scope and emotional depth. And his poems give readers the impression of being inhibited and suppressed, pausing, and then all of a sudden, bursting forth. Du Fu’s poems have the distinctive artistic feature of “pensiveness and cadence” in terms of expression of content, emotion and rhythmic form.

If I were to carry on my ancestors’cause and free myself from years of humiliation, although my writings would not be enough to promote the essence of the Six Classics and surpass the works of leading classical scholars, they can still match those by Yang Xiong and Mei Gao when it comes to pensiveness, cadence, and being in tune with the times, as well as in terms of sharpness. (Du Fu: A Memorial to His Majesty on Presenting “Ode to an Eagle”)

Du Fu couldn't write the kind of free-spirited poetry that Li Bai did; likewise, Li Bai couldn't write the kind of profound and pensive poetry that Du Fu did. (YanYu: Canglang's Criticism on Poetry)

Pensiveness means that a thought is developed before it is committed to paper, and the artistic appeal is felt beyond expression, such as describing a man full of resentment and a woman who misses her husband, or the sentiments of the neglected son of a lowly concubine and a helpless official. (Chen Tingzhuo:Remarks on Ci Poems from the White Rain Studio)