I didn't quite know how to make this less stark, but perhaps the words stand out better this way. This is a fragment of a poem attributed to someone called Lady Midnight, from the 4th C. AD. According to legend, she was a courtesan, but nobody really knows. There is a collection of 117 poems attributed to her (the Lady Midnight collection). This translation is by David Hinton, from the book, "Classical Chinese Poetry. An Anthology". I am drawn to the sense of melancholy that often informs classical Chinese poetry.