Facing Snow by Du Fu (Translated by Stanton Hager)

FACING SNOW   by Du Fu   Battle-slaughter musters fresh legions of weeping ghosts; Old, alone, fretful, I mutter poems, hum tunes.   A chaos of clouds, thrusting down, swallows dusk's last glints; Dense unceasing snow is danced about and about by the wind.   Draining a wine cask of its green dregs, I cast aside the ladle; The fire's gone out, yet a faint red warmth clings to the stove.   Here, as everywhere, war has stemmed the flow of news; Perennial news in books? How vain and prattling they seem now!       Translated by Stanton Hager in Huangshan: Poems from the T'ang Dynasty (Cape Cod: 21st Editions, 2010). Copyright 2012, 2010, 2006.