Status Updates From Li Po and Tu Fu: Poems

For thousands of miles our expeditions go
Till the Three Armies’ men are worn and old,
But the Huns look on killing like tilling their fields,
White bones all grow on their yellow sands!

My spirit was startled,
my senses were stirred,
With such awe upon me
that I sighed aloud;

Then woke to find nothing
but pillow and quilt,
And lost was that Vision
of Vapour and Cloud
(And so Joys go for ever, where here below
The water in the rivers all Eastward flow!)

(Hard is the Journey,
Hard is the Journey,
So many turnings,
And now where am I?)

from Hard is the Journey