"A peculiar anthologic maze, an amusing literary chaos, a farrago of quotations, a mere olla podrida of quaintness, a pot pourri of pleasant delites, a florilegium of elegant extracts, a tangled fardel of old-world flowers of thought, a faggot of odd fancies, quips, facetiae, loosely tied" (Holbrook Jackson, Anatomy of Bibliomania) by a "laudator temporis acti," a "praiser of time past" (Horace, Ars Poetica 173).
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Monday, May 12, 2014
How Do You Grow Old?
Wang An-shih (1021-1086), "Hymn," tr. David Hinton:
Dawn lights up the room. I close my book and sleep,
dreaming of Bell Mountain and full of tenderness.
How do you grow old living with failure and disgrace?
Just go back to the cascading creek: cold, shimmering.