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growing old without a lover
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In one of the poems in the Chinese 'Book of Odes' a girl speaks with increasing urgency to the gentlemen who are not yet courting her:
The plums are falling - There are only seven. For the gentlemen who court me, Lucky is the time.
The plums are falling - There are only three. For the gentlemen who court me, Now is the time.
The plums are falling - In a basket I have gathered them all. For the gentlemen who court me, Speak while there is time.
Quoted Bamber Gascoigne The Treasures and Dynasties of China, Cape 1977, page 34
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