Classic Poem

In the past there was a man. When he was dispatched to Ise Province as an imperial huntsman, the mother of the high priestess of the Ise Shrine told her daughter to treat him better than she would the usual messengers. Since these were her mother's instructions, she took very good care of him. In the morning she saw him off on his hunting, and when he returned in the evenings she had him stay in her own lodgings. In this way, she treated him well.
On the night of the second day, the man said quite passionately that he wanted to meet her privately. The woman, too, was not ill-disposed toward their meeting. However, since there were many prying eyes, they were unable to meet. Since the man was the chief huntsman, he was lodged not far from the woman's own sleeping quarters. At the first hour of the rat, when everyone had gone to sleep, she came to him. For his part, he had been unable to sleep and was lying down looking out into the night when he saw her standing there in the dim moonlight with a little girl in front of her. The man was overjoyed and led her into his chamber. She stayed until the third hour of the ox, but they had hardly had time to do much at all when the woman returned to her rooms. The man, deeply saddened, could not sleep. In the morning he was impatient to hear from her, but it would not have been proper for him to send her a note, and he was waiting in distress when shortly after dawn, the following poem came from the woman, with no further message:
Did you come to me?
Did I go to you?
I cannot tell.
A dream, or reality?
Was I asleep, or awake? Weeping piteously, the man composed this:

I have wandered
in the darkness
of my heart.
Let us decide tonight:
dream or reality.
After sending this to her, he went out hunting. He rode through the fields but was distracted by thoughts of meeting her that night, soon after the others went to sleep. But the governor of the province, who also oversaw affairs at the shrine, had heard that an imperial huntsman was visiting. He kept the man drinking through the night, and the pair was quite unable to meet. Since he had to move on to Owari Province the next day, the man wept tears of blood, unbeknownst to anyone, but still they could not meet. When dawn was breaking, a poem came from the woman, written on the saucer of a cup of parting. He took it up, and read:

Since ours is a bond
shallow as waters that do not wet
the hem of a traveler's robes ... She had written this much, leaving the poem incomplete. Using charcoal from a pine torch, he wrote the last lines on the saucer:

again I will cross
the Gate of Meeting. At daybreak he crossed into Owari Province.
The woman served as high priestess of Ise during the reign of Emperor Seiwa. She was the daughter of Emperor Montoku and the sister of Prince Koretaka.