Moonlit Night

Moonlit Night
By Tu Fu

The moon tonight in Fu-chou
She watches alone from her chamber,
While faraway I think lovingly on daughters and sons,
Who do not yet know how to remember Chang-an.
In scented fog, her cloudlike hairdo moist,
In its clear beams, her jade-white arms are cold.
When shall we lean in the empty window,
Moonlit together, its light drying traces of tears.


After the rebellion of 755, the capital, Chang-an, was taken by Lushan rebels. As an officer, Tu Fu was trying to serve his country. Unfortunately, on his way to Ling-wu, Tu Fu was trapped by rebels and transferred to Chang-an. Moonlit Night was created by Tu Fu during that time.

Tu Fu started his poem with “the moon tonight in Fu-chou” (where his family lived). Even though he did not use any words like miss my wife, etc., his wife and he was watching the same moon tells readers that he really missed his wife in Chang-an just like how his wife missed him in Fu-chou. Not only missed his wife, Tu Fu missed his children as well. “While faraway I think lovingly on daughters and sons, who do not yet know how to remember Chang-an.” I think what Tu Fu tried to tell was his kids were too young to know why their mom was watching the moon (and missing the husband) in order to express his wife’s loneliness and sadness. Through describing his wife’s body shape under the moon light, he fantasized about that his lovely wife was standing beside him. Although that was just his imagination, he still hoped the day their reunion. “Moonlit together” shows that he expected he could hug his wife and she could nestle against his chest watching the moon as light as tonight’s. So Moonlit Night describes Tu Fu couple missed each other during that chaos time.

In Chinese history, Tu Fu was a really great poet rather than a successful officer. Because of his rough experiences in his life time, most of time, he was not there with his family. Therefore, his poems were mostly based on suffering the emotion of missing the family.