Janet Frame (1924–2004) New Zealand author
Owls Do Cry, pt, 1, chap. 4, 1961
The Green Willow; reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).
Janet Frame (1924–2004) New Zealand author
Owls Do Cry, pt, 1, chap. 4, 1961
“They more adeptly bend the willow's branches
who have experience of the willow's roots.”
Rainer Maria Rilke book Sonnets to Orpheus
Sonnet 6 (as translated by Edward Snow)
Sonnets to Orpheus (1922)
William Cullen Bryant (1794–1878) American romantic poet and journalist
The Third of November, 1861. Thirty Poems. Appleton, New York. pp. 112-115. (1864)
Wang Wei (699–759) a Tang dynasty Chinese poet, musician, painter, and statesman
"A Song at Weicheng" (送元二使安西), as translated by Witter Bynner in Three Hundred Poems of the Tang Dynasty
Variant translations:
Wei City morning rain dampens the light dust.
By this inn, green, newly green willows.
I urge you to drink another cup of wine;
West of Yang Pass, are no old friends.
Mike O'Connor, "Wei City Song" in Where the World Does Not Follow (2002), p. 119
No dust is raised on pathways wet with morning rain,
The willows by the tavern look so fresh and green.
I invite you to drink a cup of wine again:
West of the Southern Pass no more friends will be seen.
Xu Yuan-zhong, "A Farewell Song" in 150 Tang Poems (1984), p. 29
Light rain is on the light dust.
The willows of the inn-yard
Will be going greener and greener,
But you, Sir, had better take wine ere your departure,
For you will have no friends about you
When you come to the gates of Go.
Ezra Pound, epigraph to "Four Poems of Departure", in Cathay (1915), p. 28
“Near the lake where drooped the willow,
Long time ago!”
George Pope Morris (1802–1864) American publisher
Near the Lake, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).
“April's air stirs in
Willow-leaves… a butterfly
Floats and balances”
Bashō Matsuo (1644–1694) Japanese poet
Source: Japanese Haiku