Tu Fu: The Ghost-Road

The winds and the pines are whispering, The river girds in its flight, My footfalls sound through ancient tiles Where grey rats flit from sight. What monarch raised those palace walls? Who knows to-day his name Who left beneath yon precipice The stone wrack of his fame? p. 57 Like jets of dusky blue I see Ghosts from the gloom arise, Down the forgotten road return Strange rumours and faint sighs. The thousand voices of the void Blend to a chant bizarre, And the purple leaves are carpeted For Autumn's avatar. The death-doomed legions thunder past In the wake of fleeting years; I fain would drown their tramp with song, But all my songs are tears.