Often in this life of ours we resemble, in our failure to meet, the Shen and <br />Shang constellations, one of which rises as the other one sets. What lucky <br />chance is it, then, that brings us together this evening under the light of <br />this same lamp? Youth and vigor last but a little time. --- Each of us now has <br />greying temples. Half of the friends we ask each other about are dead, and our <br />shocked cries sear the heart. Who could have guessed that it would be twenty <br />years before I sat once more beneath your roof? Last time we parted you were <br />still unmarried, but now here suddenly is a row of boys and girls who <br />smilingly pay their respects to their father's old friend. They ask me where I <br />have come from; but before I have finished dealing with their questions, the <br />children are hurried off to fetch us wine. Spring chives are cut in the rainy <br />dark, and there is freshly steamed rice mixed with yellow millet. `Come, we <br />don't meet often!' you hospitably urge, pouring out ten cupfuls in rapid <br />succession. That I am still not drunk after ten cups of wine is due to the <br />strength of the emotion which your unchanging friendship inspires. Tomorrow <br />the peak will lie between us, and each will be lost to the other, swallowed up <br />in the world's affairs.<br /><br />Tu Fu<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/to-the-recluse-wei-pa/
