As for Miao Xiaomiao, she'd already become deeply entranced as each line of the poem was unravelled before her… Three hundred days and sixty make a year, and therein lurk; daggers of wind and swords of frost to do their cruel work… How long will the fair fresh flower which bright and brighter glows? One morning its petals float away, but to where no-one knows…

But high in the air, what grave is there? No, give me an embroidered bag within to lay their charms. And Mother Earth, pure Mother Earth, shall hide them in her arms… Thus those sweet forms which come shall spotless go again. Nor pass dirty with mud and filth along some filthy drain. Farewell, dear flowers, forever now, thus buried as was best. I have not yet divined when I with you shall sink to rest. I who can bury flowers like this a laughing-stock shall be; I cannot say in days to come what hands shall bury me. See how when spring begins to fail each opening flower fades; so too there is a time of age and death for beautiful