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Description
To Du Fu, Whom I Have Yet To Meet

I only wish to scale this dust-wall
And swim across the mud-mired streets
To find you by a cloud-wreathed mountain
Where you've remained as still as stone.
I will not come as if I were another
Hearing your peaceful reply to my query
And thinking you must be deaf to the tumult
That an old man speaks only of lost times
As if water could cease to quench fire
Or a chariot make war with its horse.
In the company of others, do not waver
And when alone do not weep
To all generations your heart has shone
No less like summer's noonday sun
Than like the shade of violet painted upon
The faintest wisps of twilight.
On every day that you sat and wrote
Ten thousand ancestors knew your honour
Now every day the sun is revealed
Ten thousand children honour you.

Description
To Du Fu, Whom I Have Yet To Meet

I only wish to scale this dust-wall
And swim across the mud-mired streets
To find you by a cloud-wreathed mountain
Where you've remained as still as stone.
I will not come as if I were another
Hearing your peaceful reply to my query
And thinking you must be deaf to the tumult
That an old man speaks only of lost times
As if water could cease to quench fire
Or a chariot make war with its horse.
In the company of others, do not waver
And when alone do not weep
To all generations your heart has shone
No less like summer's noonday sun
Than like the shade of violet painted upon
The faintest wisps of twilight.
On every day that you sat and wrote
Ten thousand ancestors knew your honour
Now every day the sun is revealed
Ten thousand children honour you.