Spring View
The capital has fallen, yet mountains and rivers remain;
Spring fills the city, where grasses and trees grow thick.
Moved by the times, I shed tears at the flowers;
Grieving separation, I start at the birdsong.
The beacon fires have burned through three months;
A letter from home is worth ten thousand pieces of gold.
I scratch my white hair until it grows shorter still,
Almost too thin to hold a hairpin.
Notes
The fallen capital is Chang’an. Thick vegetation suggests neglect. Beacon fires stand for war; “three months” can be read as several months or the three months of spring. A hairpin secured a man’s bound hair.
Meaning
In war-stricken Chang’an, the poet sees spring while grieving for the country and longing for news of his family.
Appreciation
The opening contrasts surviving mountains and rivers with the fallen capital; thick vegetation suggests a neglected city.
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Flowers and birds, normally signs of spring, intensify the speaker’s grief. The lines also allow a reading in which nature seems to share that grief.
A letter valued above gold brings the war’s vast scale into the intimate experience of a separated family.
The final image narrows to the gesture of scratching thinning white hair, making anxiety visible.
About the poet
Du Fu (712–770), courtesy name Zimei, was a Tang poet born in the area of present-day Gongyi, Henan. War and official work took him through many places, including Chengdu.
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His surviving poems include Spring View and a number of quatrains, as well as works about everyday life and war.