First Known When Lost

"Life passes swiftly, hedged by sorrow;/how long before you've lost it -- a scene like this?"  (Su Tung-p'o (1037-1101), &...

Human nature being what it is, the world has always been, and will always be, beset with utopian busybodies who have taken leave of their se...

 " . . . like a dove/That slants unswerving to its home and love." Earlier this week, about an hour before sunset, I was out for...

Reading Chinese poetry of past centuries, one often encounters poems of parting, as well as poems of longing for a family member or friend w...

I beg your pardon, dear readers, for the lengthy silence.  I fell ill upon returning from an early September journey to Southern California ...

Reading the poetry of Robert Herrick always helps to put our day-to-day world into perspective.  For instance:                          Noth...

Virtually nothing is known about the Greek poet Praxilla, who, it is conjectured, lived in the middle of the Fifth Century, B. C.  Of her po...

"Yet still the unresting castles thresh."  This line by Philip Larkin came to me a few days ago as I walked through a grove of tre...