Du Fu QUOTES

1 " My path is full of petals–I have swept it for no others.
My thatch gate has been closed–but opens now for you.
It’s a long way to the market, I can offer you little–
Yet here in my cottage there is old wine for our cups. "

― Du Fu

2 " A falcon hovers at the edge of the sky.
Two gulls drift slowly up the river.

Vulnerable while they ride the wind,
they coast and glide with ease.

Dew is heavy on the grass below,
the spider's web is ready.

Heaven's ways include the human:
among a thousand sorrows, I stand alone. "

― Du Fu

3 " Could I get mansions covering ten thousand miles, I'd house all the poor scholars and make them beam with smiles "

― Du Fu

4 " At the edge of heaven, tatters of autumn
Cloud. After ten thousand miles of clear
Lovely morning, the west wind arrives. Here,
Long rains haven't slowed farmers. Frontier

Willows air thin kingfisher colors, and
Red fruit flecks mountain pears. As a flute's
Mongol song drifts from a tower, one
Goose climbs clear through vacant skies. "

― Du Fu , The Selected Poems of Tu Fu

5 " Separation by death must finally be choked down,
but separation in life is a long anguish,

Chiang-nan is a pestilential land;
no word from you there in exile.

You have been in my dreams, old friend,
as if knowing how much I miss you.

Caught in a net,
how is it you still have wings?

I fear you are no longer mortal;
the distance to here is enormous.

When your spirit came, the maples were green;
when it went, the passes were black.

The setting moon spills light on the rafters;
for a moment I think it's your face.

The waters are deep, the waves wide;
don't let the river gods take you. "

― Du Fu

6 " Wagons rattling and banging,
horses neighing and snorting,
conscripts marching, each with bow and arrows at his hip,
fathers and mothers, wives and children, running to see them off--
so much dust kicked up you can't see Xian-yang Bridge!
And the families pulling at their clothes, stamping feet in anger,
blocking the way and weeping--
ah, the sound of their wailing rises straight up to assault heaven.
And a passerby asks, "What's going on?"
The soldier says simply, "This happens all the time.
From age fifteen some are sent to guard the north,
and even at forty some work the army farms in the west.
When they leave home, the village headman has to wrap their turbans for them;
when they come back, white-haired, they're still guarding the frontier.
The frontier posts run with blood enough to fill an ocean,
and the war-loving Emperor's dreams of conquest have still not ended. "

― Du Fu

7 " Though a country be sundered, hills and rivers endure;
And spring comes green again to trees and grasses
Where petals have been shed like tears
And lonely birds have sung their grief.
... After the war-fires of three months,
One message from home is worth a ton of gold.
... I stroke my white hair. It has grown too thin
To hold the hairpins any more. "

― Du Fu

8 " Shine: clear dew aching with light. "

― Du Fu

9 " Separation by death must finally be choked down,
but separation in life is a long anguish,

Chiang-nan is a pestilential land;
no word from you there in exile.

You have been in my dreams, old friend,
as if knowing how much I miss you.

Caught in a net,
how is it you still have wings?

I fear you are no longer mortal;
the distance to here is enormous.

When your spirit came, the maples were green;
when it went, the passes were black.

The setting moon spills light on the rafters;
for a moment I think it's your face.

The waters are deep, the waves wide;
don't let the river gods take you. "

― Du Fu

10 " Wind, light and time ever revolve; Let us then enjoy life as best we can." from "The Winding River "

― Du Fu

11 " it’s all one single grief. "

― Du Fu , The Selected Poems of Tu Fu

12 " Beneath the light, the river and hills are beautiful,
The spring breeze bears the fragrance of flowers and grass.
The mud has thawed, and swallows fly around.
On the warm sand, mandarin ducks are sleeping "

― Du Fu

13 " News comes from nowhere. "

― Du Fu , The Selected Poems of Tu Fu

14 " Two yellow orioles sing under emerald willows
One line of White Egrets ascends clear skies
Window frames Western riged snow of a thousand autumns
Door moors Eastern Wu a boat of ten-thousand li "

― Du Fu , The Selected Poems of Tu Fu

15 " Who changes, who even slows this dead dazzling drunk in the wings of life we live? "

― Du Fu , The Selected Poems of Tu Fu

16 " Here by the winding streamlet, among the sighing winds, old gray mice scurry over the roof-tiles. No one any more remembers the Prince's name who built this palace under overhanging cliffs.

In darkened rooms you can see green ghost fires...from the flutes of the forest you can hear a thousand voices. The young palace ladies of long ago are in their yellow graves...then why are painted scrolls still hanging on the wall? The charioteers and their gold chariots are crumbled...then why are stone horses, carved in olden days, standing yet?

Sadness sits on the grass. I sing the story, but I am heavy with sorrow...among all these paths that we may walk along into the distance, which one will ever carry us to Life Forever? "

― Du Fu , The Selected Poems of Tu Fu