Du Fu

"好雨知時節，當春乃發生。 隨風潛入夜，潤物細無聲。"

"無邊落木蕭蕭下，不盡長江滾滾來。"

"人生不相見，動如參與商。 今夕復何夕，共此燈燭光。 少壯能幾時，鬢髮各已蒼。 訪舊半爲鬼，驚呼熱中腸。 焉知二十載，重上君子堂。 昔別君未婚，兒女忽成行。 怡然敬父執，問我來何方。 問答乃未已，兒女羅酒漿。 夜雨剪春韭，新炊間黃粱。 主稱會面難，一舉累十觴。 十觴亦不醉，感子故意長。 明日隔山嶽，世事兩茫茫。"

"戰哭多新鬼，愁吟獨老翁。 亂雲低薄暮，急雪舞迴風。 瓢棄尊無綠，爐存火似紅。 數州訊息斷，愁坐正書空。"

"天際秋雲薄，從西萬里風。 今朝好晴景，久雨不妨農。 塞柳行疏翠，山梨結小紅。 胡笳樓上發，一雁入高空。"

"I'm empty, here at the edge of the sky."

"君不見青海頭 古來白骨無人收 新鬼煩冤舊鬼哭"

"Birds the more white, against green stream Blooms burst to flame, against blue hills I glance, the spring is gone again. What day, what day, can I go home?"

"Nature ever calls people to live Along with her; why should I be lured By transient rank and honours?"

"Clear waters wind Around our village, With long summer days Full of loveliness; Fluttering in and out From the house beams The swallows play; Waterfowl disport together As everlasting lovers; ... What more could I wish for?"

"A visible darkness grows up mountain paths; I lodge by the river gate high in a study, Frail cloud on a cliff edge passing the night. The lonely moon topples amid the waves; Steady, one after another, a line of cranes in flight. Howling over the kill, wild dogs and wolves. No sleep for me. I worry over battles— I have no strength to right the universe."

"Tonight my wife must watch alone the full moon over Fu-zhou; I think sadly of my sons and daughters far away, too young to understand this separation or remember our life in Chang'an. In fragrant mist, her flowing hair is damp; In clear moonlight, her jade-white arms are cold. When will we lean at the open casement together while the moonlight dries our shining tears?"

"朱門酒肉臭路有凍死骨"

"飯顆山頭逢杜甫，頭戴斗笠日卓午。 借問別來太瘦生，總為從前作詩苦。"

"When we were young, we have to memorize those texts from Tu Fu and others. And my grandmother used to carry me on my back and chant to me Chinese poems and sayings. The first kind of poetry I heard was Chinese poetry, and it ingrained in my ear, even though English is my main language. I can hardly read Chinese. The Chinese poem was ingrained in me when I was very young."

"China's greatest poet."

"His poems do not as a rule come through very well in translation."

"my mother did the chant of Fa Mu Lan. I learned to talk by repeating those things. I never knew, until I got to college and was taking an Asian Lit class, that that was important poetry. I just thought it was my parents' tales. My brothers thought, oh, those are just village ditties. They sing that on the farm. And then I thought later, oh, Tu Fu and Li Po-this is important stuff."

"Tu Fu is, in my opinion, and in the opinion of a majority of those qualified to speak, the greatest non-epic, non-dramatic poet who has survived in any language."

"Tu Fu was the master stylist of regulated verse, the poet of social protest, the confessional poet, the playful and casual wit, the panegyricist of the imperial order, the poet of everyday life, the poet of the visionary imagination. He was the poet who used colloquial and informal expressions with greater freedom than any of his contemporaries; he was the poet who experimented most boldly with densely artificial poetic diction; he was the most learned poet in recondite allusion and a sense of the historicity of language. One function of literary history is to account for a poet’s identity; Tu Fu’s poetry defies such reduction: the only aspect that can be emphasized without distorting his work as a whole is the very fact of its multiplicity."