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66. THE OLD DUST
The living is a passing traveler;
The dead, a man come home. ~iz*
One brief journey betwixt heaven and earth, ^
Then, alas! we are the same old dust of ten thousand ages.
The rabbit in the moon pounds the medicine in vain;
Fu-sang, the tree of immortality, has crumbled to kin- dling wood.
Man dies, his white bones are dumb without a word
When the green pines feel the coming of the spring.
Looking back, I sigh; looking before, I sigh again.
What is there to prize in the life's vaporous glory %
��According to Chinese folklore there is a rabbit in the ,moon, which is pounding the elixir of life.
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