Du Fu: Rain

Du Fu

Source: Kim Cheng Boey, Between Stations: Essays (2009), p. 102
Context: Spring Night, Delighting in Rain (A translation by Burton Watson)

The good rain knows when to fall,
stirring new growth the moment spring arrives.

Wind-borne, it steals softly into the night,
nourishing, enriching, delicate, and soundless.

Country paths black as the clouds above them;
on a river boat a lone torch flares.

Come dawn we'll see a landscape moist and pink,
blossoms heavy over the City of Brocade.

Season

“Autumn, cloud blades on the horizon.
The west wind blows from ten thousand miles.
Dawn, in the clear morning air,
Farmers busy after long rain.
The desert trees shed their few green leaves.
The mountain pears are tiny but ripe.
A Tartar flute plays by the city gate.
A single wild goose climbs into the void.”

Du Fu

"Clear After Rain" (雨晴), as translated by Kenneth Rexroth in One Hundred Poems from the Chinese (1971), p. 16

Mountain , Business , Autumn , Tree

“Good rain is coming to our delight.
Its early-spring timing is perfectly right.
With wind it drifts in all through the night.
Silently it's drenching everything in sight.”

Du Fu

"Welcome Rain in a Spring Night" (《春夜喜雨》), as translated by Ying Sun http://www.musicated.com/syh/tangpoems.htm (2008)

Spring , Time , Night

“It is almost as hard for friends to meet
As for the morning and evening stars.
Tonight then is a rare event,
Joining, in the candlelight,
Two men who were young not long ago
But now are turning grey at the temples.
To find that half our friends are dead
Shocks us, burns our hearts with grief.
We little guessed it would be twenty years
Before I could visit you again.
When I went away, you were still unmarried;
But now these boys and girls in a row
Are very kind to their father's old friend.
They ask me where I have been on my journey;
And then, when we have talked awhile,
They bring and show me wines and dishes,
Spring chives cut in the night-rain
And brown rice cooked freshly a special way.
My host proclaims it a festival,
He urges me to drink ten cups—
But what ten cups could make me as drunk
As I always am with your love in my heart?
Tomorrow the mountains will separate us;
After tomorrow—who can say?”

Du Fu

"To My Retired Friend Wei" (Chinese: 贈衛八處士) in: University of Virginia's 300 Tang Poems http://etext.virginia.edu/chinese/frame.htm at etext.virginia.edu

Love , Men , Way , Girl