Bai Juyi 白居易
late 830s · Tang China · To his friend Liu Yuxi
The day before yesterday we drank at your house; yesterday, the feast at the Wangs'. Today you stop at my cottage: three meetings in three days. When there is singing, let us sing freely; over the wine, let us urge each other on. Drain a cup for me, and I will make three wishes with you. First, that the world be at peace; second, that our bodies stay strong; third, that here at the end of old age I may see you often.
前日君家飲，昨日王家宴。
今日過我廬，三日三會面。
當歌聊自放，對酒交相勸。
爲我盡一杯，與君發三願。
一願世清平，二願身強健。
三願臨老頭，數與君相見。"For Mengde," in the Complete Tang Poems
In the same thread
Bai Juyi 白居易
late 830s · Tang China · To Liu Yuxi, a friend born the same year, when both were past sixty and living in Luoyang
You and I have both grown old. I ask myself what old age is like. My eyes are dry, so I lie down early; my head is lazy, and goes uncombed at dawn. Now and then I go out on a stick; whole days I sit behind a shut gate. I am slow to look in a new-polished mirror, and leave small-print books alone. My feeling for old friends grows deeper; my path drifts apart from the young. Only the pleasure of idle talk: when we meet there is still plenty of that.
與君俱老也，自問老何如。
眼澀夜先臥，頭慵朝未梳。
有時扶杖出，盡日閉門居。
嬾照新磨鏡，休看小字書。
情於故人重，迹共少年疎。
唯是閑談興，相逢尚有餘。"On Old Age, for Mengde," in the Complete Tang Poems
Liu Yuxi 劉禹錫
late 830s · Tang China · In answer to Bai Juyi's poem. The last line is widely known in another reading, "turned to rose clouds, it still fills the sky"; the text here follows the Complete Tang Poems
Who does not wish to live long? Yet once old, who will pity you? The body thins and the belt is taken in again; the hair thins and the cap sits askew. I put books aside to spare my eyes, and burn more moxa as the years ask. But having seen affairs, one understands affairs; one reads people as one reads a stream. Think it through and it is all good fortune; let this go and the heart is free. Do not say the sun is late among the mulberries and elms: a faint glow still fills the sky.
人誰不願老，老去有誰憐。
身瘦帶頻減，髪稀冠自偏。
廢書緣惜眼，多炙爲隨年。
經事還諳事，閱人如閱川。
細思皆幸矣，下此便翛然。
莫道桑榆晚，微霞尚滿天。"Answering Letian's Poem on Old Age," in the Complete Tang Poems
Mark Twain
1897 · Missouri, USA · Connecticut
Wrinkles should merely indicate where smiles have been.
Following the Equator, epigraph to chapter 52, from "Pudd'nhead Wilson's New Calendar"
1 in 100 Billion · The social network of those who came before us