Short Poems

How sad and gloomy is the world,
This world of sin and woe!
Ah! while I drift along Life's stream,
Tossed helpless to and fro,
My tears will ever flow.

The cuckoo's echo dies away,
And lo! the branch is bare;
I only see the morning moon,
Whose light is fading there
Before the daylight's glare.

Tell me, doth any know the dark recess
Where dwell the winds that scatter the spring flow'rs?
Hide it not from me! By the heav'nly pow'rs,
I'll search them out to upbraid their wickedness!

After these ten torn wearisome years
We have met again. We were both so changed
That hearing first your surname, I thought you a stranger —
Then hearing your given name, I remembered your young face. . . .
All that has happened with the tides
We have told and told till the evening bell. . . .
Tomorrow you journey to Yo-chou,
Leaving autumn between us, peak after peak.

If earth but ceas'd to offer to my sight
The beauteous cherry-trees when blossoming,
Ah! then indeed, with peaceful, pure delight,
My heart might revel in the joys of spring!

Monkeys and birds are still alert for your orders
And winds and clouds eager to shield your fortress.
... You were master of the brush, and a sagacious general,
But your Emperor, defeated, rode the prison-cart.
You were abler than even the greatest Chou statesmen,
Yet less fortunate than the two Shu generals who were killed in action.
And, though at your birth-place a temple has been built to you,
You never finished singing your Song of the Holy Mountain .

The prospect from my cottage shows
No other hut in sight;
The solitude depresses me,
Like deepening twilight
On a chill autumn night.

So long and dreary is the road,
That I have never been
To Ama-no-Hashidate;
Pray, how could I have seen
The verses that you mean?

This waterfall's melodious voice
Was famed both far and near;
Although it long has ceased to flow,
Yet still with memory's ear
Its gentle splash I hear.

Pure of heart and therefore hungry,
All night long you have sung in vain —
Oh, this final broken indrawn breath
Among the green indifferent trees!
Yes, I have gone like a piece of driftwood,
I have let my garden fill with weeds. ...
I bless you for your true advice
To live as pure a life as yours.