Quote by Du Fu: “The state is broken; mountains and rivers remain.”

Empires fall, wars destroy cities, governments collapse — but the natural world continues. There is both consolation and accusation in this observation: nature's indifference to human suffering reminds us how small our catastrophes are, while also showing us what outlasts them.

Du Fu wrote this poem Spring View in 757 CE while trapped in the Tang capital of Chang'an, which had been occupied by the forces of the An Lushan Rebellion. The Tang dynasty had been devastated, millions of people had died, and the poet watched his city in ruins. His poem captures the paradox of natural beauty persisting through human catastrophe.

Tang dynasty Chinese poet whose work earned him the title Poet Sage, one of the two supreme poets of classical Chinese literature alongside Li Bai. His poetry, unlike Li Bai's romanticism, is marked by Confucian social concern and direct engagement with the suffering caused by war and famine. He lived through the devastating An Lushan Rebellion and his poems of that period are considered among the greatest war poetry in any language.