Moonlit Night by Du Fu Translated by Stanton Hager

Tonight over Fu-zhou, as in Ch'ang-an, stark bright the moon;

By your bedroom window, you gaze at it alone.

Faraway,

I weep for our little boy and girl, too

To recall Ch'ang-an or to understand why I'm not home.

I can smell your scented silk-black hair damped by mist,

See your fair white arms turn jade-cold by moon-glaze.

Oh, when shall we lean again at the same window,

Under the same radiance, the rivers of our tears dried? Translated by Stanton Hagerin Huangshan:

Poems from the T'ang Dynasty (Cape Cod: 21st Editions, 2010)Before Du Fu's "Moonlit Night," few Chinese poems had been written to or about a poet's wife.

When previously a woman became the subject of a poem, she was usually a dazzling, exotic courtesan.

Tu Fu, however, wrote many poems about his wife and children.