“It is almost as hard for friends to meet
As for the morning and evening stars.
Tonight then is a rare event,
Joining, in the candlelight,
Two men who were young not long ago
But now are turning grey at the temples.
To find that half our friends are dead
Shocks us, burns our hearts with grief.
We little guessed it would be twenty years
Before I could visit you again.
When I went away, you were still unmarried;
But now these boys and girls in a row
Are very kind to their father's old friend.
They ask me where I have been on my journey;
And then, when we have talked awhile,
They bring and show me wines and dishes,
Spring chives cut in the night-rain
And brown rice cooked freshly a special way.
My host proclaims it a festival,
He urges me to drink ten cups—
But what ten cups could make me as drunk
As I always am with your love in my heart?
Tomorrow the mountains will separate us;
After tomorrow—who can say?”
"To My Retired Friend Wei" (Chinese: 贈衛八處士) in: University of Virginia's 300 Tang Poems http://etext.virginia.edu/chinese/frame.htm at etext.virginia.edu
Original
人生不相見，動如參與商。 今夕復何夕，共此燈燭光。 少壯能幾時，鬢髮各已蒼。 訪舊半爲鬼，驚呼熱中腸。 焉知二十載，重上君子堂。 昔別君未婚，兒女忽成行。 怡然敬父執，問我來何方。 問答乃未已，兒女羅酒漿。 夜雨剪春韭，新炊間黃粱。 主稱會面難，一舉累十觴。 十觴亦不醉，感子故意長。 明日隔山嶽，世事兩茫茫。
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Du Fu 13
Chinese poet of the Tang Dynasty 712–770Related quotes
Incipit
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Epistles
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Context: I am half inclined to think we are all ghosts, Mr. Manders. It is not only what we have inherited from our fathers and mothers that exists again in us, but all sorts of old dead ideas and all kinds of old dead beliefs and things of that kind. They are not actually alive in us; but there they are dormant, all the same, and we can never be rid of them. Whenever I take up a newspaper and read it, I fancy I see ghosts creeping between the lines. There must be ghosts all over the world. They must be as countless as the grains of the sands, it seems to me. And we are so miserably afraid of the light, all of us.
The Night Is Still Young.
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