轻轻的我走了

輕輕的我走了
qīngqīng de wǒ zǒu le
quotation

Meanings

  1. 1 softly I am leaving
  2. 2 (fig.) the trademark tender, weightless farewell — famously from Xu Zhimo's Cambridge poem
  3. 3 (lit.) softly-softly I go-PAST

Examples

Bìyè diǎnlǐ shàng, tā lǎngsòng qīngqīngdewǒzǒule, quánchǎng dōu ānjìng xiàlái.
At graduation he recited 'softly I am leaving' — the whole hall fell silent.
Qīngqīngdewǒzǒule, zhèngrúwǒqīngqīngdelái — — Xúzhìmó zuì zhùmíng de yī jù.
'Softly I am leaving, just as I came softly' — Xu Zhimo's most famous line.

Tips

history
The opening line of 徐志摩》(Xu Zhimo, Second Farewell to Cambridge, 1928): 轻轻正如轻轻轻轻招手西天云彩 (Softly I am leaving, just as softly I came; I softly wave my hand, saying goodbye to the western sky's clouds). Written on a steamship returning to China after Xu revisited King's College, Cambridge, where he had studied 1921–22. Paired with the closing stanza 悄悄的...带走一片云彩, it bookends the most famous short poem in modern Chinese literature.
usage
Modern baihua poetry. here functions adverbially (轻轻 = softly), not as the possessive particle — characteristic of 1920s–30s prose-poem register. Always paired with 正如轻轻.

Stroke Order

qīng
de
zǒu
le