Rain at night
[Tang Dynasty] Du Fu
The light rain becomes denser at night, and the returning wind blows the early autumn.
The wild cold invades the closed houses, and the rivers are filled with boats.
Tong Ji hates being sick, and he is a bad man.
Leaving Wu Gorge in the cold weather, I bid farewell to Zhongxuan Tower while drunk.
Du Fu (AD 712-AD 770), whose courtesy name was Zimei, also called himself Shaoling Ye Lao. Han nationality, whose ancestral home is Xiangyang, a native of Gong County, Henan Province (now Gongyi, Henan Province). A great realist poet in the Tang Dynasty, he and Li Bai were collectively known as "Li Du". In order to distinguish them from the other two poets Li Shangyin and Du Mu, known as "Little Li Du", Du Fu and Li Bai are also collectively known as "Big Li Du", and Du Fu is often called "Old Du".
Du Fu had a profound influence on Chinese classical poetry. He was called the "Sage of Poetry" by later generations, and his poems were called the "History of Poetry". Later generations called him Du Shiyi and Du Gongbu, and also called him Du Shaoling and Du Thatched Cottage. Du Fu created such masterpieces as "Spring Look", "Northern Expedition", "Three Officials" and "Three Farewells". In 759, Du Fu abandoned his official position and went to Sichuan. Although he escaped the war and lived a relatively stable life, he still cared about the common people and national affairs. Although Du Fu is a realist poet, he also has a wild and uninhibited side. It is not difficult to see Du Fu's heroic spirit from his famous work "Song of the Eight Immortals in Drinking". The core of Du Fu's thoughts is the Confucian thought of benevolent government. He has the grand ambition of "bringing the emperors Yao and Shun to the throne, and then making the customs pure." Although Du Fu was not well-known during his lifetime, he later became famous and had a profound impact on both Chinese and Japanese literature. About 1,500 poems by Du Fu have been preserved, most of which are collected in "Du Gongbu Collection".