New Culture poets

As their name suggests, the New Culture poets were a progressive group, drawing inspiration from the works of their Western confrères just as their Anglophone contemporaries, the Imagists, drew from the works of classical Chinese poets. In a poem about the Great Wall, a popular metaphor then for tyrannical rule, Liu [Bannong] recalls the legend of Lady Meng Jiang, whose husband was forced to help build the Wall. When Lady Meng journeyed to see her love, only to discover he was already dead, her tears were so abundant that they brought down a part of the wall. Liu wrote:

To this day people are still talking of Meng Jiang Nü
Yet no more is said of the First Emperor of Qin or the Martial Emperor of Han
Throughout the ages nothing is sadder than an ordinary tragedy
In her tears Meng Jiang Nü lives through all eternities.

/ David Volodzko, The Diplomat