Du Fu

Boys in fancy clothes never starve,
but Confucian scholars often find their lives in ruin.
Please listen to my explanation,
Sir

The old fellow from Shao-ling weeps with stifled sobs as he walks furtively by the bends of the Sepentine on a day in spring.
In the waterside palaces the thousands of doors are locked.
For whom have the willows and rushed put on their…

Drums on the watch-tower have emptied the roads -At the frontier it's autumn; a wild-goose cries.
This is a night in which dew becomes frost;
The moon is bright like it used to be at home.
I have brothers, but they're scattered;

Evening colors linger on mountain paths.
Out beyond this study perched over River Gate,
At the cliff's edge, frail clouds
All night.

Li Bai, no sight of you for a long time,
It's tragic that you pretend to be insane.
The whole world wants to kill you.
I alone treasure your talent.

NG
OW  by Du Fu Battle-slaughter musters fresh legions of weeping ghosts;
Old, alone, fretful,
I mutter poems, hum tunes.

How is one to describe this king of mountains?
Throught the whole of Ch'i
Lu one never loses sight of its greenness.
In it the Creator has concentratedall that is numinous and beautiful.

How to describe Tai mountain?
Its green towers above all of Chi and Lu!
Here the Creator concentrated divine beauty;
its north and south sides split dark from dawn.

News comes to Jianwai1 that Jibei has been recoveredand tears wet my garments when I hear the news.
I turn to look at my wife, all sorrows gone,
and roll up my writings carelessly in crazy joy.
I sing loudly in the sun and can't…

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

Third day, third month festival,
and the air fresh with spring;
beside Serpentine Lake in Chang'an,
many lovely women stroll.

Evening falls on palace walls shaded by flowering trees, with cry of birdsflying past on their way to roost.
The stars quiver as they look down on themyriad doors of the palace, and the moon's light increases as she moves intothe ninefold…

Roads not yet glistening, rain slight,
Broken clouds darken after thinning away.
Where they drift, purple cliffs blacken.
And beyond — white birds blaze in flight.

Tonight my wife must watch alone
the full moon over Fu-zhou;
I think sadly of my sons and daughters far away,
too young to understand this separationor remember our life in Chang'an.

Here at the world's end the cold winds are beginning to blow.
What messageshave you for me, my master?
When will the poor wandering goose arrive?
Therivers and lakes are swollen with autumn's waters.

Hooded crows fly at night
over the walls of Chang'an,
uttering harsh cries
above Welcoming Autumn Gate

Clouds drifting the whole day;
a traveler traveling who never arrives.
Three nights you have been in my dreams;
as your friend

At the home of the Prince of Qi
I have often seen you,
and in the hall of Cui Jiu,
I have heard you sing.

Separation by death must finally be choked down,
but separation in life is a long anguish,
Chiang-nan is a pestilential land;
no word from you there in exile.

I remember fleeing the rebels through dangerous northern canyons,
the midnight moon shining brighton narrow P’eng-ya Road.
So poor we went on foot, we were embarrassed meeting strangers.
A few birds sang in the valleys, but we met…

Under my feet the
Glides along the river.
Near midnight, a gusty
Shines in the heart of night.

A falcon hovers at the edge of the sky.
Two gulls drift slowly up the river.
Vulnerable while they ride the wind,
they coast and glide with ease.

Once stately figures in the art of rhyme,
Now sadly down at heels, our careers in ruin,
Regarded by our servants with disdain,
We are grown old and gray before our time.

Often in this life of ours we resemble, in our failure to meet, the Shen
Shang constellations, one of which rises as the other one sets.
What luckychance is it, then, that brings us together this evening under the light ofthis same…