The variation of the two Chinese characters <li>, as being used in the Bo JiuYi verse ”Seeing Off In Ancient Steppe” and Jiu Yuan's ”Ode to a Tangerine Tree”, are being considered in this paper. In the poetical verse ”Seeing Off In Ancient Steppe” (”How Freely Flourish the Rich Grasses in Steppe”) the characters <li> are placed by the author in succession one after another and are being used to strengthen quality or quantity. The semantic features of the character allow it to be understood either as a particle which strengthens impression from the wide steppe, or indication for the freedom of the flourishing grass in the steppe, or as a metaphor ”the beautiful as flame”, which later on widens its meaning getting transformed into ”flourishing”. In the ”Ode to a Tangerine Tree” the beauty of flame is also mentioned (”you are beautiful as flame”). One of the versions of the character <li> traces its history back to the ancient character <li>. We consider both characters as words belonging to the fine literature, and having the old history.