奉济驿重送严公四韵

远送从此别
青山空复情
几时杯重把
昨夜月同行
列郡讴歌惜
三朝出入荣
江村独归处
寂寞养残生
fèng jì yì chóng sòng yán gōng sì yùn

yuǎn sòng cóng cǐ bié
qīng shān kōng fù qíng
jǐ shí bēi chóng bǎ
zuó yè yuè tóng xíng
liè jùn ōu gē xī
sān cháo chū rù róng
jiāng cūn dú guī chù
jì mò yǎng cán shēng
Far escort from now on part
Green mountains in vain repeat feeling
When cup again grasp?
Last night moon together walk
Each prefecture eulogise cherish
Three reigns out enter honour
River village alone return place
Lonely recuperate remaining years
After long escort, from now on we part,
Green mountains: in vain I repeat my emotion.
What day will we grasp the cup again?
Last night we travelled together under the moon.
In each region, you are eulogised and cherished,
In three reigns old and new you have been honoured.
I return alone to my riverside village,
To live the last of life in solitude.

View Chinese text in traditional characters.

Other Chinese poems about Parting and Age.

Notes: This poem dates from 762; Du Fu had accompanied his friend and patron, Yan Wu, from Chengdu to Fengji, a distance of around a hundred miles (Hawkes, p. 114).

This poem is volume (juàn) 227, no. 27 in the Complete Tang Poems (quán táng shī). It is translated as poem 18 in Hawkes, pp. 113-6, and poem CCXX in Hung, p.188, and on p. 65 of Hinton.

Hawkes, D. (1967) A Little Primer of Tu Fu. Oxford, Oxford University Press.
Hinton, D. (1990) The Selected Poems of Tu Fu. London, Anvil Press Poetry.
Hung, W. (1952) Tu Fu: China's Greatest Poet. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press.