Here's something you might be interested in.
Ask a Hipster — Advice you didn't know you needed
Big Screen — Movie commentary
Blurt — Music's inside track
Booze News — San Diego spirits
Classical Music — Immortal beauty
Classifieds — Free and easy
Cover Stories — Front-page features
Drinks All Around — Bartenders' drink recipes
Excerpts — Literary and spiritual excerpts
Feast! — Food & drink reviews
Feature Stories — Local news & stories
Fishing Report — What’s getting hooked from ship and shore
From the Archives — Spotlight on the past
Golden Dreams — Talk of the town
The Gonzo Report — Making the musical scene, or at least reporting from it
Letters — Our inbox
Movies@Home — Local movie buffs share favorites
Movie Reviews — Our critics' picks and pans
Musician Interviews — Up close with local artists
Neighborhood News from Stringers — Hyperlocal news
News Ticker — News & politics
Obermeyer — San Diego politics illustrated
Outdoors — Weekly changes in flora and fauna
Overheard in San Diego — Eavesdropping illustrated
Poetry — The old and the new
Reader Travel — Travel section built by travelers
Reading — The hunt for intellectuals
Roam-O-Rama — SoCal's best hiking/biking trails
San Diego Beer — Inside San Diego suds
SD on the QT — Almost factual news
Sheep and Goats — Places of worship
Special Issues — The best of
Street Style — San Diego streets have style
Surf Diego — Real stories from those braving the waves
Theater — On stage in San Diego this week
Tin Fork — Silver spoon alternative
Under the Radar — Matt Potter's undercover work
Unforgettable — Long-ago San Diego
Unreal Estate — San Diego's priciest pads
Your Week — Daily event picks
At the End of Spring
A poem by Po Chū-i
to Yüan Chēn (A.D. 810)
- The flower of the pear-tree gathers and turns to fruit;
- The swallows’ eggs have hatched into young birds.
- When the Seasons’ changes thus confront the mind
- What comfort can the Doctrine of Tao give?
- It will teach me to watch the days and months fly
- Without grieving that Youth slips away;
- If the Fleeting World is but a long dream,
- It does not matter whether one is young or old.
- But ever since the day that my friend left my side
- And has lived an exile in the City of Chiang-ling,
- There is one wish I cannot quite destroy:
- That from time to time we may chance to meet again.
— translated by Arthur Waley
Po Chū-i (772–846) lived during the T’ang Dynasty, a period that produced the greatest flowering of Chinese poetry. His work was extremely popular during his lifetime and has remained popular ever since. Po’s style is marked by great simplicity and accessibility and a world view that is compassionate and socially conscious, his poems frequently noting the oppression of the poor, the abuse of political power, and the arrogance of the wealthy. He was an official in several Chinese provinces and occupied several important government positions. Arthur Waley, the translator (1889–1963), was a well-known British scholar of Asian art and translator of Chinese and Japanese literature. His biography of Po, The Life and Times of Po Chū-i, was published in 1949. “At the End of Spring” appeared in Waley’s second book, More Translations for the Chinese, published by Knopf in 1919.
Here's something you might be interested in.
At the End of Spring
A poem by Po Chū-i
At the End of Spring
A poem by Po Chū-i
to Yüan Chēn (A.D. 810)
- The flower of the pear-tree gathers and turns to fruit;
- The swallows’ eggs have hatched into young birds.
- When the Seasons’ changes thus confront the mind
- What comfort can the Doctrine of Tao give?
- It will teach me to watch the days and months fly
- Without grieving that Youth slips away;
- If the Fleeting World is but a long dream,
- It does not matter whether one is young or old.
- But ever since the day that my friend left my side
- And has lived an exile in the City of Chiang-ling,
- There is one wish I cannot quite destroy:
- That from time to time we may chance to meet again.
— translated by Arthur Waley
Po Chū-i (772–846) lived during the T’ang Dynasty, a period that produced the greatest flowering of Chinese poetry. His work was extremely popular during his lifetime and has remained popular ever since. Po’s style is marked by great simplicity and accessibility and a world view that is compassionate and socially conscious, his poems frequently noting the oppression of the poor, the abuse of political power, and the arrogance of the wealthy. He was an official in several Chinese provinces and occupied several important government positions. Arthur Waley, the translator (1889–1963), was a well-known British scholar of Asian art and translator of Chinese and Japanese literature. His biography of Po, The Life and Times of Po Chū-i, was published in 1949. “At the End of Spring” appeared in Waley’s second book, More Translations for the Chinese, published by Knopf in 1919.
Comments