Would appreciate translation of a handwritten sentence.

[wsf372]

I was recently going through some old letters from collage - about 20 years ago and I found this set of characters at the bottom of the letter. I would appreciate some help with translating it. I have attempted to look up the characters by using the handwriting input on http://usa.mdbg.net/chindict/chindict.php but have not had much luck with this.

[imron]

The characters are： 落花不是無情物，化作春泥更護花

It's a line from a poem (but with one character different). Rough translation:

Falling petals are not uncaring, they turn to soil and help nourish the flower.

The original poem was written by a Qing official tired of the corruption around him, who left his post in Beijing to return to his hometown.

[889]

(I see someone else has just responded, but I'll post this anyway; the one character difference is that the first 花 hua should be 紅 hong.)

Search around a bit on the web and you'll see this comes from 己亥杂诗 "Miscellaneous Poems of the Jihai Year" by 龚自珍 Gong Zizhen. A common translation of this stanza, 落花不是無情物 化作春泥更護花, seems to be "But fallen petals are not heartless matter; transmuted into Spring soil they will again nurture flowers." Search Google and you'll learn more; it's a common phrase.

[skylee]

Which reminds me of the Tang poem (Lu You) 零落成泥碾作塵，只有香如故. Not really related, but both of them are about fallen flowers/petals. And then there is another line by Du Fu (Tang) - 潤物細無聲.