— * A.D. 685-762.
** See <Po Chu-i> and <The Never-ending Wrong>. —
"`Alas!' he murmured, `they are closed, the thousand palace doors, mirrored in clear cool waters. The young willows and the rushes renewing with the year — for whom will they now grow green?'
"Once in the garden of the South waved the standard of the Emperor.
"All that nature yields was there, vying with the rarest hues.
"There lived she whom the love of the first of men had made first among women.
"She who rode in the imperial chariot, in the excursions on sunny days.
"Before the chariot flashed the bright escort of maidens armed with bow and arrow.
"Mounted upon white steeds which pawed the ground, champing their golden bits.
"Gaily they raised their heads, launching their arrows into the clouds,