T'ang poetry

Recently I was reading a book about Li Po and Tu Fu (now more commonly referred to in the West as Li Bai and Du Fu).  It is a collection of several poems translated by Arthur Cooper, with lots of historical and biographical background included, as well as notes about the individual poems.  I love a book like this--there are many layers to it and it is a joy to read.

Here is an excerpt from a poem by Tu Fu called Night Thoughts Afloat:

Drifting, drifting,
what am I more than
A single gull
between sky and earth?