Su Zhe 蘇轍
1061 · Northern Song China · After seeing off his brother Su Shi, who was leaving for his first post
Hand in hand we said goodbye on the plain of Zheng, and both spoke of our fear of the snowy mud on the long road. My horse, turning back, looks for the lanes of Daliang. You, the traveller, must already be west of old Mount Xiao.
相携話別鄭原上，共道長途怕雪泥。
歸騎還尋大梁陌，行人已渡古崤西。"Thinking of Mianchi, Sent to My Brother Zizhan"
In the same thread
Su Shi 蘇軾
1061 · Song China
A life, wherever it comes to: do you know what it is like? It must be like a wild goose in flight, treading on snowy mud. By chance it leaves the marks of its claws on the mud, and when the goose flies on, who can say whether east or west?
人生到處知何似，應似飛鴻踏雪泥。
泥上偶然留指爪，鴻飛那復計東西。"Answering Ziyou's Poem on Remembering Old Days at Mianchi," in the Complete Song Poems
Olive Schreiner
1883 · Cape Colony, South Africa · The words of a hunter dying after a lifetime of cutting steps up a mountain of rock
By the steps that I have cut they will climb; by the stairs that I have built they will mount. They will never know the name of the man who made them. At the clumsy work they will laugh; when the stones roll they will curse me. But they will mount, and on my work; they will climb, and by my stair!
The hunter's tale in The Story of an African Farm
1 in 100 Billion · The social network of those who came before us