translated by Sam Hamill
Reluctant, I must take leave from war
to tend my ailing garden.
But before the journey, this poem of goodby.
We’ll lighten our sadness with wine.
Rain fell hard all through the fall,
and now the weather is clearing.
Climbing mountain trails, I’ll hear your bugles,
but how will I bear their calling?
Tu Fu
For a millenium, Chinese literati have almost unanimously considered Tu Fu (712-790 AD) to be their greatest poet, greater even than his T'ang contemporaries Wang Wei and Li Po. Written largely in poverty and at a time of great political upheaval, Tu Fu's work shows above all its author's persistent humility and humanity. Some fourteen hundred poems by Tu Fu survive.
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