Snow at Changsha
by: Du Fu (712-770)
translated by W. J. B. Fletcher
Out of the north the snow
Is assaulting Changsha:
Its clouds over Hunan go
(Where few snows are):
A myriad homes makes cold
Far borne on the gale
With scattered leaflets old
Where raindrops hail,
Not grown to flake-like flowers.
Empty of angels pale
Flaccid my purse.
Yet a silver pot may bail
Credit for wine.
No one to fetch it? Why then
I drain off the froth.
Must I wait again and again
Till the dizzy crows
Come home to their roosting bowers?
