This poem comes from Burying Flowers.
Ode to Buried Flowers
Qing Dynasty: Cao Xueqin
When the flowers fade, the sky is filled with flowers, and the red color disappears and the fragrance disappears. Who can pity me?
The soft hairspring is tied to the floating spring pavilion, and the fallen catkins lightly touch the embroidered curtain.
The daughter in the boudoir cherishes the twilight of spring, full of melancholy and unable to find relief.
Peel the flowers out of the embroidered curtain with your hands, and bear to step on the fallen flowers back and forth.
The willow silk and elm pods are fragrant, regardless of the peach blossoms and Li Fei.
The peaches and plums will bloom again next year, and I will know who will be in my boudoir next year.
The fragrant nest has been built in March, and the swallows in the beams are too ruthless.
Although I can peck at the flowers next year, I won’t be able to leave my nest empty.
Three hundred and sixty days a year, wind, sword, frost and sword confront each other.
How long can the bright and fresh beauty last? It is difficult to find it once it is wandering.
The flowers are easy to see when they bloom but hard to find when they are gone. I worry about killing and burying the flowers in front of the steps.
Leaning alone on the flower, I shed my tears secretly, and sprinkled the empty branches with traces of blood.
The cuckoo is speechless. It is dusk, and the man with the hoe returns to cover the heavy door.
The green lantern shines on the wall, and the person is sleeping for the first time, while the cold rain hits the window and the quilt is not yet warm.
The things that happened to the strange slave are doubly distressing, half pity for spring and half angry for spring.
The pity for the spring comes and goes suddenly, and then the anger goes away, and it goes without saying anything.
Last night a sad song was heard outside the court, and I knew it was the soul of a flower or a bird.
The soul of a flower is hard to retain as the soul of a bird. The bird is speechless and the flower is ashamed.
May I have wings this day and fly with the flowers to the end of the sky.
Where is the fragrant hill at the end of the sky?
It is not like a brocade bag to collect beautiful bones, but a handful of pure soil to cover up the wind.
It is better to come and go clean than to be filthy and sink into ditches.
You will be buried now after you die. I don’t know when I will be buried.
The person who buries flowers today is laughing like crazy, but I don’t know who he was when he was buried.
Look at the spring flowers gradually falling, it is the time when the beauty dies of old age.
Once the spring is gone, the beauties grow old, and the flowers fall and people die without knowing it.
This is a poem recited by Lin Daiyu, the heroine of the chapter novel "A Dream of Red Mansions" written by Cao Xueqin. It comes from an ancient poem recited by Lin Daiyu in the 27th chapter of "Dream of Red Mansions" "The Concubine Yang plays with colorful butterflies in the Dicui Pavilion, and the flying swallows weep in the incense grave." The whole poem has fifty-two lines and three hundred and sixty-eight words. "The Burial of Flowers" is one of the most praised and artistically successful poems in the book "A Dream of Red Mansions". This poem is the representative of all the lamentations of Lin Daiyu lamenting her life experience. It is also an important work by the author Cao Xueqin to shape this artistic image and express her character. "Ode to Buried Flowers" and "Eloquy of Lotus's Daughter" in Chapter 78, one poem and one article, can be called a masterpiece of poetry and prose in "A Dream of Red Mansions".