Short Poems

Ah! I am a firefly eating
Knotgrass in a thatched hut.

Tired with travelling
I think of a lodging;
Ah! the drooping wistaria!

I come aweary,
In search of an inn —
Ah! these wistaria flowers!

I felt gay, but presently sad,
In the cormorant fishing boat.

The landscape which the poet loves
is that of early May,
When budding greenness half concealed
enwraps each willow spray.
That beautiful embroidery
the days of summer yield,
Appeals to every bumpkin
who takes his walk afield.

How reluctantly the bee emerges from
The depths of pistils of a peony!

My whitening hair would make a long long rope,
Yet could not fathom all my depth of woe;
Though how it comes within a mirror's scope
To sprinkle autumn frosts, I do not know.

Of Miidera
The gate I would knock at —
The moon of to-day.

THE LAST AGONY .

I love and hate. Ah, never ask why so!
I hate and love — and that is all I know.
I see 't is folly, but I feel 't is woe!

An ancient pond!
A frog leaps in;
The sound of the water!