Substance, Shadow, and Spirit, "Substance speaks to Shadow" (translation by A. Waley)
In A Hundred and Seventy Chinese Poems (1919), 'Poems By Tao Ch'ien', p. 106
Context: Heaven and Earth exist for ever:
Mountains and rivers never change.
But herbs and trees in perpetual rotation
Are renovated and withered by the dews and frosts:
And Man the wise, Man the divine—
Shall he alone escape this law?
Fortuitously appearing for a moment in the World
He suddenly departs, never to return.
How can he know that the friends he has left
Are missing him and thinking of him?
Only the things that he used remain;
They look upon them and their tears flow.
Me no magical arts can save,
Though you may hope for a wizard's aid.
I beg you listen to this advice—
When you can get wine, be sure to drink it.
“Whate'er of earth is form'd, to earth returns,
* * * * The soul
Of man alone, that particle divine,
Escapes the wreck of worlds, when all things fail.”
Bk. IV. L. 1.
The Chace (1735)
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William Somervile 9
English poet 1675–1742Related quotes
Sir Hugo's Choice, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).
Sivakozhundu of Tiruvazhundur (1939)
Context: Listen, You can hear the thunder. Ten cracks in the last five minutes. The thunderstorm is a constant phenomenon, raging alternately over some part of the world or the other. Can a single man or creature escape death if all that charge of lightning strikes the earth? No. And therefore it is natural for thunder to crash, and only in the skies. But once in a long while lightning does strike the earth. Then, instead of killing its victim outright, it snatches his eyes away. Swami, would you say this is a natural phenomenon, or that it is against nature?
“To a wise man, the whole earth is open; for the native land of a good soul is the whole earth.”
Freeman (1948), p. 166
Durant (1939), Ch. XVI, §II, p. 352 (footnote); citing F. Uberweg, History of Philosophy, New York, 1871, vol. 1, p. 71.
Variant: To a wise and good man the whole earth is his fatherland.
“Count me o'er earth's chosen heroes, — they were souls that stood alone”
St. 12
The Present Crisis (1844)
Context: Count me o'er earth's chosen heroes, — they were souls that stood alone,
While the men they agonized for hurled the contumelious stone,
Stood serene, and down the future saw the golden beam incline
To the side of perfect justice, mastered by their faith divine,
By one man's plain truth to manhood and to God's supreme design.
1872(?), page 99
Echoing the 1816 hymn Come Ye Disconsolate http://www.hymntime.com/tch/htm/c/y/d/cydiscon.htm by Thomas Moore: "Earth has no sorrow that heaven cannot heal."
John of the Mountains, 1938
“The Earth and I”, from De-triumphant March (1960)