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104. THE BALLADS OF THE FOUR SEASONS
WINTER
The courier will depart on the morrow for the front.
All night she sews a soldier's jacket.
Her fingers, plying the needle, are numb with cold;
Scarce can she hold the icy scissors.
At last the work is done; she sends it a long, long way,
Oh, how many days before it reaches him in Lin-tao?
Lin-tao, a town on the frontier of Tu-fan, whose war- like tribes had harassed the Chinese empire for centuries past.
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