Nine fields of orchids at one time I grew,
For melilot a hundred acres too,
And fifty acres for the azalea bright,
The rumex fragrant and the lichen white.
I longed to see them yielding blossoms rare,
And thought in season due the spoil to share.
I did not grieve to see them die away,
But grieved because midst weeds they did decay.
Next Tuesday is Dragon Boat Festival, a day that celebrates the suicide by drowning of China's 'father of poetry', the historic patriotic poet Qu Yuan(ca. 340 BC - 278 BC) who had a really hard time of it. But more of that later. This quote is a gentle taste of one of the great poems in world literature, a poem with political truths which are just as relevant today as back then in the Warring States Period.
Thomas Carlyle once said, Man does not change. He merely stands more exposed. It is great poets like Qu Yuan who do much of the exposing.
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