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Kobayashi Issa 小林一茶

1812 · Edo Japan · Back in his snowbound home village at fifty

So this, then, is my last home? Five feet of snow.

これがまあつひの栖か雪五尺

A haiku

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He Zhizhang 賀知章

744 · Tang China · Home again past eighty, after fifty years

I left home young and come back old. My country accent is unchanged, but the hair at my temples is thin. The children see me and do not know me. They smile and ask: "Where are you from, visitor?"

少小離家老大回,鄉音難改鬢毛衰。 兒童相見不相識,笑問客從何處來。

"Coming Home: Lines Written by Chance," the first poem, in the Complete Tang Poems

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Du Fu 杜甫

759 · Tang China · An autumn of war, his brothers scattered, on the night the season turns to White Dew

From tonight the dew turns white; the moon is brightest over my old home. I have brothers, and all are scattered; there is no home left to ask whether they live or die.

露從今夜白,月是故鄉明。 有弟皆分散,無家問死生。

"Thinking of My Brothers on a Moonlit Night," in the Complete Tang Poems

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Rumi مولانا جلال‌الدین

c. 1260 · Konya, Anatolia

Anyone who is left far from his own root keeps seeking the days when he was joined to it.

هر کسی کو دور ماند از اصل خویش باز جوید روزگار وصل خویش

Masnavi, the opening

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