My hair’s turning gray, but this devotion to our country remains.
South of the peaks, I’ve been gazing north into southern mountains

all year. To mount a horse, spear athwart: that’s where my heart is,
laughing at those chicken-shits digging moats around our capital. . .

Sun sinks away. Smoke comes windblown over ridges. It’s autumn,
and the sound of watchmen banging cookpots fills tumbling clouds.

Ravaged fathers in Ch’ang-an country go on grieving and looking
looking for the emperor’s armies coming back through the passes.

translated by David Hinton