A spring view

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.


-Tu Fu (c.750). (trans. Witter Bynner)