Du Fu

Saddened by the times I weep at the flowers tormented by the partings even the birds startle my heart.

How I long to lie down in some gully, alone and untrammeled! But I laugh at myself: an old madman growing older, growing madder.

Heaven's ways include the human: among a thousand sorrows, I stand alone.

The mud has thawed, and swallows fly around, On the warm sand, mandarin ducks are sleeping.

The city has fallen: only the hills and rivers remain. In Spring the streets were green with grass and trees.

The river's blue, the bird a perfect white, The mountain green with flowers about to blaze. I've watched the spring pass away again, When will I be able to return?

The country is broken, but mountains and rivers remain.

My thatched roof is torn by autumn winds—the village boys steal my thatch.

I’m so poor I can’t even afford to be sick.

The stars lean perilously close to the earth tonight.

My poems are no use—they won’t fill anyone’s stomach.

The river is so wide, even the birds can’t cross it.

I’m so thin, my shadow could slip through a crack in the door.

The war has turned my hair white, but the wine turns it black again.

At the grand vermillion gates, wine and meat spoils, while the road outside is paved with frozen bones.

After the war-fires of three months, One message from home is worth a ton of gold.

I laugh at myself: an old madman growing older, growing madder.

My darling son now will not leave my knee, He's scared that I will go away again.

My heart is in a world of water and crystal, My clothes are damp in this time of spring rains.

The ladle's cast aside, the cup not green, The stove still looks as if a fiery red. To many places, communications are broken, I sit, but cannot read my books for grief.