“
Last night I dreamt I dwelt in marble halls;
Tonight beside the watery waste I sing.
The island's cloud-cap drifts above the sea,
And mists about its mountain forests cling.
Our pasts and presents to the moon are one;
Our lives and loves beyond our reckoning.
Yet still my heart yearns for that distant South,
Where time is lost in one eternal spring.
”
”
Cao Xueqin (The Story of the Stone, or The Dream of the Red Chamber, Vol. 2: The Crab-Flower Club)