Source: The Tales of Alvin Maker, Red Prophet (1988), Chapter 17.
“Tonight a pair of cooing doves under red bridal curtains,
Tomorrow a heap of bleached bones like those of yesteryear.
[…]
One moment we grieve over a short-lived friend,
The next we are ourselves overtaken by death.”
Source: Dream of the Red Chamber (1958), p. 14
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Wang Chi-chen 22
1899–2001Related quotes
Volume 2, Ch. 2
Fiction, The Book of the Long Sun (1993–1996)
“Moment to moment, we can grow, if we can bring ourselves to meet the moment with our lives.”
Source: The Life of Poetry (1949), Chapter One : The Fear of Poetry
Context: Poetry is, above all, an approach to the truth of feeling, and what is the use of truth!
How do we use feeling?
How do we use truth! However confused the scene of our life appears, however torn we may be who now do face that scene, it can be faced, and we can go on to be whole.
If we use the resources we now have, we and the world itself may move in one fullness. Moment to moment, we can grow, if we can bring ourselves to meet the moment with our lives.
1836
Notebooks, The American Notebooks (1835 - 1853)
“By riverside are cooing
A pair of turtledoves;
A good young man is wooing
A maiden fair he loves.”
The Book of Poetry, "A Fair Maiden"
Song of the Immortals: An Anthology of Classical Chinese Poetry (1994)