Tu Fu
SPRING VIEW
The nation is ruined, but mountains and rivers remain.
This spring the city is deep in weeds and brush.
Touched by the times even flowers weep tears,
Fearing leaving the birds tangled hearts.
Watch-tower fires have been burning for three months
To get a note from home would cost ten thousand gold.
Scratching my white hair thinner
Seething hopes all in a trembling hairpin.
Tang Dynasty poet Tu Fu, wrote this 757 AD poem during the An Lushan Rebellion when he was held captive in the abandoned capital, Chang'an.
This translation of “Spring View” appears in Gary Snyder’s Sixteen T’ang Poems. Snyder is a poet, essayist, lecturer, and environmental activist. His early poetry has been associated with the Beat Generation and the San Francisco Renaissance and he has been described as the "poet laureate of Deep Ecology". Snyder is a winner of a Pulitzer Prize for Poetry and the American Book Award. He has translated literature into English from ancient Chinese and modern Japanese.