One morning I call for a sedan-chair man;
his face shows amazement as he looks at me.
" Can it not be possible
that you and I have met once in this life? "
The bearer rubs his eyes,
looks again, and sighs again.
He says that when I was first married
it was he who pushed the marriage car!
Now that scholar, so young and handsome,
has changed appearance like the morning mist.
How is it that the second time we meet
I should have become so very ancient?
Before the bearer has finished talking
a secret pain is born in my heart:
It's like meeting the old man
of the T'ien-pao era
to hear tell again of the Yellow Millet Dream!