Page:A Hundred and Seventy Chinese Poems (1919).djvu/65

 SEVENTEEN OLD POEMS

''The following seventeen poems are from a series known as the Nineteen Pieces of Old Poetry. Some have been attributed to Mei Shēng [first century B. C.], and one to Fu I [first century'' A. D.]. ''They are manifestly not all by the same hand nor of the same date. Internal evidence shows that No. 3 at least was written after the date of Mei Shēng's death. These poems had an enormous influence on all subsequent poetry, and many of the habitual clichés of Chinese verse are taken from them. I have omitted two because of their marked inferiority.''

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