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resulting poem
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A seven-year-old girl, famous already for her poetic gifts, is brought before the empress Wu in 7th-century China. She is asked to improvize a poem on the subject of saying farewell to her brother. This is what she says:
'In the pavilion of separation, the leaves suddenly blew away.
On the road of farewell, the clouds lifted all of a sudden.
Ah! How I regret that men are not like the wild geese
Who go on their way together.'
Quoted Bamber Gascoigne The Treasures and Dynasties of China, Cape 1973, page 113
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