1 in 100 Billion

Cui Hu 崔護

c. 796 · Tang China

Last year, on this day, inside this gate, a face and the peach blossoms shone red upon each other. Where that face has gone I do not know. The peach blossoms smile in the spring wind as before.

去年今日此門中,人面桃花相映紅。 人面不知何處在,桃花依舊笑春風。

"Written at a Village South of the Capital"

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In the same thread

Jin Changxu 金昌緒

c. 8th–9th century · Yuhang, Tang China · In the voice of a wife trying to meet in her dreams a man gone to the far frontier of Liaoxi

Chase the oriole away. Do not let it sing on the bough. Its singing breaks my dream, and I cannot reach Liaoxi.

打起黃鶯兒,莫教枝上啼。 啼時驚妾夢,不得到遼西。

"Spring Lament"

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The singer of "Cheongsan byeolgok"

c. 13th–14th century · Goryeo Korea

Cry, cry, bird; wake from sleep and cry, bird. I, with more sorrows than you, wake from sleep and cry too.

우러라 우러라 새여 자고 니러 우러라 새여. 널라와 시름 한 나도 자고 니러 우니로라.

"Cheongsan byeolgok" (Song of the Green Hills), second stanza, in Akjang gasa

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Wang Wei 王維

mid-8th century · Tang China · Red beans were called the seeds of longing. The second line is widely known as "when spring comes, how many branches bloom?"; the text here follows the Complete Tang Poems

Red beans grow in the southern land; when autumn comes they sprout on the old branches. Gather as many as you can, I beg you: nothing speaks of longing as these do.

紅豆生南國,秋來發故枝。 願君多采擷,此物最相思。

"Longing," in the Complete Tang Poems

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