Yuan Mei

If I can rejoice for a moment,
Death at an early age would still be a long life.

Yuan Mei (1716 – 1798) was a Chinese poet.

Quotes

• I've ever thought it passing odd
  How all men reverence some God,
  And wear their lives out for his sake
  And bow their heads until they ache.
  'Tis clear to me the Gods are made
  Of the same stuff as wind or shade. ...
  Ah! if they came to every caller,
  I'd be the very loudest bawler!
  • "A Scoffer", as translated by Herbert Giles in Chinese Poetry in English Verse (1898), p. 189, and quoted by Leonard Feinberg in Hypocrisy: Don't Leave Home Without It (2002), p. 147

• If I can rejoice for a moment,
  Death at an early age would still be a long life.
  • "Miscellaneous Poems" III, quoted in Albert Davis (ed.), The Penguin Book of Chinese Verse (1962), p. 67

Quotes about Yuan Mei

• Yuan Mei was a revolutionary in the world of poetry.
  • Zhu Ziqing, as quoted in J. D. Schmidt's Harmony Garden: The Life, Literary Criticsm and Poetry of Yuan Mei, 1716–1798 (2003), p. 129

External links

• Encyclopedic article on Yuan Mei on Wikipedia