Du Fu: My Versions in English

SPRING PROSPECT

The nation in ruins,
mountains and rivers remain.

The city in spring's
deep in grass and trees.

My tears at the passing days
fall as dew from the flowers.

Embittered by separation,
I startle at birdsong.

Beacon fires have blazed
for all these three months.

For a letter from home
I'd give ten thousand in gold.

I've pulled so at my white hair
my hatpin hardly holds.
--Du Fu


Thanks to Joel Lipman, the poet laureate of Lucas County, for the suggestion to separate the couplets. Helps to break up the clunkiness, in English, of always-endstopped lines.

Another Version:

The nation in ruin,

mountains and rivers remain.

The city in spring,

deep in grass and trees.

Lost in wretched times,

weeping over flowers.

Sunk in loneliness,

startling at birdsong.

Beacon fires,

burning for three months.

Family letters,

worth thousands in gold.

Pulling so at my white hair
that my hatpin barely holds.


春望

国破山河在
城春草木深
感时花溅泪
恨别鸟惊心
烽火连三月
家书抵万金
白头搔更短
浑欲不胜簪


chūn wàng

guó pò shān hé zài
chéng chūn cǎo mù shēn
gǎn shí huā jiàn lèi
hèn bié niǎo jīng xīn
fēng huǒ lián sān yuè
jiā shū dǐ wàn jīn
bái tóu sāo gèng duǎn
hún yù bù shēng zān

Thoughts of the Night Traveller

Slender grass in the shore breeze.
Tall mast on a lonely boat.
Stars sink over spreading fields.
The moon rides on the river.
Too old and sick for office--
and will scribblings make my name?
Drifting, drifting, what am I?
One gull between earth and sky.




FACING SNOW


Battle cries, many new ghosts.
Old, alone--worry and grief.
Ragged clouds are low at dusk.
Snow swirls around and around.
Ladle and cup--green wine gone.
Dying embers--stove still red.
I sit, no news from anywhere,
my books blank with my sorrow.
     --my tr.

对雪

战哭多新鬼

愁吟独老翁

乱云低薄暮

急雪舞回风

瓢弃尊无绿

炉存火似红

数州消息断

愁坐正书空

MOONLIT NIGHT


Just now, alone in our room,
you gaze at the Fuzhou moon.
Our children--I ache for them
from far away--they don't see
why you brood upon Changon.
Fragrant fog scents your gathered hair.
Lustrous moon chills your slender arms.
When, among the gauzy curtains,
will we lean together again,
these tears dried on our faces,
their traces limned in moonlight?




On the River I Saw the Water Surging like the Ocean:  A Sketchy Account

I have always been a little off,

      so driven by love of well-made verse,

pursuing that word of startling rightness,

      I'd sooner die than rest.

In my reckless old age,

      my words and I overwhelm each other.

So you needn't fear, birds and flowers,

     for the secrets of your spring.

Just now, I've put in a pier

      to dangle a fishing line from.

Before, I was angling from an anchored raft

      in place of a boat.

Who could I get with the mind of a master

      like Tao or Xie

to help out with my writing

      and wander the nearby world with me?

--Du Fu, my tr.

Birds are whiter on the blue river.

Flowers flame up on the green mountain.

Spring, I see, has come and gone again.

What day--what year--will I return home?

--my tr.