For life's regrets run on, and rivers eastward flow - 我的飛鳥集
For life's regrets run on, and rivers eastward flow
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Key Insights
The text reflects on lingering regret and guilt that, unlike rivers flowing east to the sea, keep circling in the heart. Missed words and farewells become stranded boats striking the chest at night. Though time is said to wash everything away, the speaker's water seems to flow backward, repeatedly bringing remorse ashore. The poem concludes that one should perhaps learn from the eastward river: despite regret, keep moving forward, and eventually the pain may lessen.
For life's regrets run on, and rivers eastward flow
For life's regrets run on, and rivers eastward flow—
Yet this regret of mine, this guilt, will never flow east to the sea; it only circles round and round my heart, one ring, and then another.
Some words said in some long-gone month, a farewell that came too late, have all become grounded boats that, in the dead of night, strike my chest without a sound.
People say time is like water: it flows away and should carry everything with it. But my water seems always to run backward, washing remorse back to the shore again and again, laying it before me.
Perhaps I should learn from that river flowing east— regret though it may, still it must flow on. And as it flows, maybe the pain will ease.
For life's regrets run on, and rivers eastward flow—
Yet this regret of mine, this guilt,
will never flow east to the sea;
it only circles round and round my heart,
one ring, and then another.
Some words said in some long-gone month,
a farewell that came too late,
have all become grounded boats
that, in the dead of night,
strike my chest without a sound.
People say time is like water:
it flows away and should carry everything with it.
But my water seems always to run backward,
washing remorse back to the shore
again and again,
laying it before me.
Perhaps I should learn from that river flowing east—
regret though it may,
still it must flow on.
And as it flows,
maybe the pain will ease.