has so soon come to an end, The days and months among the Blest are still of long duration. And now she turns and gazes towards the abode of mortals, But cannot discern the Imperial city lost in the dust and haze. Then she takes out the old keepsakes, tokens of undying love, A gold hairpin, an enamel brooch, and bids the magician carry these back. One half of the hairpin she keeps, and one half of the enamel brooch, Breaking with her hands the yellow gold, and dividing the enamel in two. “Tell him,” she said, “to be firm of heart, as this gold and enamel, And then in heaven or on earth below we two may meet once more.” At parting, she confided to the magician many earnest messages of love, Among the rest recalling a pledge mutually understood; How on the seventh day of the seventh moon, in the Hall of Immortality, At midnight, when none were near, he had whispered in her ear, “I swear that we will ever fly like the one-winged birds,[19] Or grow united like the tree with branches which twine together.”[20] Heaven and Earth, long-lasting as they are, will some day pass away; But this great wrong shall stretch out for ever, endless, for ever and ay._ [Sidenote: LI HO] A precocious and short-lived poet was LI HO, of the ninth century. He began to write verses at the age of seven. Twenty years later he met a strange man riding on a hornless dragon, who said to him, “God Almighty has finished his Jade Pavilion, and has sent for you to be his secretary.” Shortly after this he died. The following is a specimen of his poetry:-- “_With flowers on the ground like embroidery spread, At twenty, the soft glow of wine in my head, My white courser’s bit-tassels motionless gleam While the gold-threaded willow scent sweeps o’er the stream. Yet until ~she~ has smiled, all these flowers yield no ray; When her tresses fall down the whole landscape is gay; My hand on her sleeve as I gaze in her eyes, A kingfisher hairpin will soon be my prize._” CHANG CHI, who also flourished in the ninth century, was eighty years old when he died. He was on terms of close friendship with Han Yü, and like him, too, a vigorous opponent of both Buddhism and Taoism. The following is his most famous poem, the beauty of which, says a commentator, lies beyond the words:--