A Song of Sobbing By the River
- Poetry of Du Fu

少陵野老吞声哭，春日潜行曲江曲。

江头宫殿锁千门，细柳新蒲为谁绿？

忆昔霓旌下南苑，苑中万物生颜色。

昭阳殿里第一人，同辇随君侍君侧。

辇前才人带弓箭，白马嚼啮黄金勒。

翻身向天仰射云，一笑正坠双飞翼。

明眸皓齿今何在？血污游魂归不得。

清渭东流剑阁深，去住彼此无消息。

人生有情泪沾臆，江水江花岂终极！

黄昏胡骑尘满城，欲往城南望城北。

I am only an old woodsman, whispering a sob,

As I steal like a spring-shadow down the Winding River.

...Since the palaces ashore are sealed by a thousand gates --

Fine willows, new rushes, for whom are you so green?

...I remember a cloud of flags that came from the South Garden,

And ten thousand colours, heightening one another,

And the Kingdom's first Lady, from the Palace of the Bright Sun,

Attendant on the Emperor in his royal chariot,

And the horsemen before them, each with bow and arrows,

And the snowy horses, champing at bits of yellow gold,

And an archer, breast skyward, shooting through the clouds

And felling with one dart a pair of flying birds.

...Where are those perfect eyes, where are those pearly teeth?

A blood-stained spirit has no home, has nowhere to return.

And clear Wei waters running east, through the cleft on Dagger-Tower Trail,

Carry neither there nor here any news of her.

People, compassionate, are wishing with tears

That she were as eternal as the river and the flowers.

...Mounted Tartars, in the yellow twilight, cloud the town with dust.

I am fleeing south, but I linger-gazing northward toward the throne.