Li Qingzhao 李清照
1130s · Song China · In her last years, alone, having lost her husband and her home
Seeking, seeking, searching, searching, cold, cold, bleak, bleak, mournful, wretched, sorrowful. This time of sudden warmth and cold again is the hardest in which to rest.
尋尋覓覓，冷冷清清，淒淒慘慘戚戚。
乍暖還寒時候，最難將息。To the tune "Slow, Slow Song"
More from Li Qingzhao · #loneliness
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Chen Ziang 陳子昂
696 · Tang China
Before me I do not see the ancients. Behind me I do not see those to come. I think of heaven and earth, so vast, so long, and alone, in grief, my tears fall.
前不見古人，後不見來者。
念天地之悠悠，獨愴然而涕下。"Song on Climbing the Terrace of Youzhou," in the Complete Tang Poems
Walt Whitman
1856 · United States
It avails not, time nor place—distance avails not, I am with you, you men and women of a generation, or ever so many generations hence, Just as you feel when you look on the river and sky, so I felt,
"Crossing Brooklyn Ferry," in Leaves of Grass
Yi Gyubo 李奎報
13th century · Goryeo Korea
The people of the world have all forgotten me. Within the four seas, this one body is alone. And not only the world: my brothers have forgotten me too. Today my wife forgets me, tomorrow I shall forget myself. After that, between heaven and earth, there will be neither near nor far at all.
世人皆忘我 四海一身孤
豈唯世忘我 兄弟亦忘予
今日婦忘我 明日吾忘吾
却後天地內 了無親與踈Dongguk Yi Sangguk jip, "On Forgetting"
Liu Zongyuan 柳宗元
c. 810 · Tang China · In exile at Yongzhou
On a thousand hills no bird flies. On ten thousand paths no footprint is left. A lone boat, an old man in straw cape and hat, fishing alone in the cold river snow.
千山鳥飛絕，萬逕人蹤滅。
孤舟蓑笠翁，獨釣寒江雪。"River Snow," in the Complete Tang Poems
Ishikawa Takuboku 石川啄木
1910 · Meiji Japan
I only somehow felt like getting on a train. When I got off the train there was nowhere to go.
何となく汽車に乗りたく思ひしのみ
汽車を下りしに
ゆくところなしTanka collection A Handful of Sand (Ichiaku no suna)
1 in 100 Billion · The social network of those who came before us