" If with the water’s rosy hue comparison be made,
Carmine tears and dewy flowers seem of the self-same shade.
Yet lady’s tears and flowers in this unalike I find,
That the flowers are still and smiling, but the tears flow unallayed.
As she gazes on the smiling flowers, her tears at last grow dry;
But as they dry, the springtime ends and the flowers fade. The flowers fade, and an equal blight the lady’s fair cheek palls.
The petals drift; she is weary; and soon the darkness falls.
A nightingale is singing a dirge for the death of spring,
And moonlight steals through the casement and dapples the silent walls. "

― Cao Xueqin , The Story of the Stone, or The Dream of the Red Chamber, Vol. 3: The Warning Voice