Tonight at Fu-chou, this moon she watches
Alone in our room. And my little, far-off
Children, too young to understand what keeps me
Away, or even remember Ch’ang-an. By now,

Her hair will be mist-scented, her jade-white
Arms chilled in its clear light. When
Will it find us together again, drapes drawn
Open, light traced where it dries our tears?

translated by David Hinton

Done advising emperors, hair white–no one cared about
old Tu Fu, his life scattered away across rivers of the west,

chanting poems. He stood on this tower once, and now he’s
gone. Waves churn the same isolate moon. Inexhaustible

through all antiquity, this world’s great dramas just rise
and sink away. Simpleton and sage alike return in due time.

All these ice-cold thoughts, who’ll I share them with now?
In depths of night, gulls and egrets lift off sand into flight.

translated by David Hinton

1

Long ago you were perhaps
a river flowing down a mountain!
Since then you’ve been flowing,
deepening your bed;
If I could make a river current
understand human feeling,
Then you might know my mind
on coming from so far.

2

You, water with no feeling,
Have you regrets as you flow east?
In my heart are things I cannot express,
Does that make me different from you?

translated by William H. Nienhauser

That flowing water! That flowing water!
My mind wanders across it.
That broad water! That flowing water!
My mind wanders across it.
That old-age water! That flowing water!
My mind wanders across it.

translated by Washington Matthews

The snow falling hard through the night
sparkled in the starlight.
There is a house on a street in a city,
a wooden house so far away.

The child sleeping on the pillow
is plump and blond–my son.
There are no guests, no one.
Poor Istanbul out the window.

Shrill whistles screamed outside.
Loneliness feels like prison.
Munevver closed her book
and softly cried.

There is a house on a street in a city,
a wooden house so far away.
The snow falling hard through the night
sparkled in the starlight.

translated by Randy Blasing & Mutlu Konuk

The Great River wraps an arm
angling around Wu-ch’ang
Parrot Island faces the gates
of ten thousand homes.
Spring sleep in a pleasure boat
unfulfilled at dawn–
In dreams a butterfly
still seeking blossoms.

translated by Jan W. Walls

In the fog we drift hither
And yon over the dark waters.
At last our little boat finds
Shelter under a willow bank.
At midnight I am awake,
Heavy with wine. The smoky
Lamp is still burning. The rain
Is still sighing in the bamboo
Thatch of the cabin of the boat.

translated by Kenneth Rexroth