God on our Youth bestowes but little ease;
But on our Age most sweet Indulgences.

O God, Who guid'st the fate of nations,
Almighty over every land,
Both life and death and all mutations
Controlling with Thy mighty hand,
What punishment Thy will ordaineth
For sins that Sweden must atone
She bears with gladness, while remaineth
The ancient freedom she has known.
'T is this that shields when dangers lower,
That comforts her when griefs enfold,
That guards when foes would overpower
Better than Sveaborg of old.
Come want! come all you eastern slaves here!
Come faction, cast your firebrand!
'T is but that we may dig your graves here

A cold light shines on the gathering dew,
As sunset fades beyond the southern mountains;
Trees echo with monkeys on the banks of Lake Tung-t'ing,
Where somebody is moving in an orchid-wood boat.
Marsh-lands are swollen wide with the moon,
While torrents are bent to the mountains' will;
And the vanished Queens of the Clouds leave me
Sad with autumn all night long.

L ET'S meet again to-night, my Fair,
Let's meet unseen of all;
The day-god labours to his lair,
And then the evenfall!

O living lute, O lily-rose,
O form of fantasie,
When torches waste and warders doze
Steal to the stars will we!

While nodding knights carouse at meat
And shepherds shamble home,
We'll cleave in close embracements—sweet
As honey in the comb!

Till crawls the dawn from Condol's crown,
And over Neitan's Kieve,
As grimly ghosts we conjure down
And hopes still weave and weave!

On the green floor of the Gulf the wind is walking,
Printing it with invisible feet;
The tide is talking.

Purple and grey the horizon walls them round
With purpler clouds.
They wander in it like guests gently astray
In a house deep mystery shrouds.

I dOnot know the speech of the tide,
For too articulate have become my years:
Beauty brings only words, not breathless tears.

So the young heron fishing there in the foam
On the sand's edge
Would once have taken my spirit far, far home
To the infinite, when he vanished through the gloam.

The wailing wind doth not enough despair;
The sea, for all her sobbing, hath the moon,
I cannot find my heart's cry anywhere,
Fain to complain alone.

The whistle of the train that, like a dart,
Pierces the darkness as it hurries by,
Hath not enough of sadness, and my heart
Is stifled for a cry.

So far, so far gone out of sight,
My strained eyes follow thee no more;
Thou to the left, I to the right,
Never to meet as heretofore.

Yet though the distance grows so wide,
We tread Love's circle year by year;
We are nearer on the other side
The farther we are sundered here.

Make your strokes thus: the horizontal :
as a cloud that slowly drifts across the horizon;
the vertical : as an ancient but strong vine stem;
the dot : a falling rock;
and learn to master the sheep leg, the tiger’s claw,
an apricot kernel, a dewdrop, the new moon,
the wave rising and falling . Do these
while holding your arm out above the paper
like the outstretched leg of a crane.
The strength of your hand
will give the stroke its bone.
But for real accomplishment, it would be well
if you would go to live solitary in a forest silence,

The rumble of thunder brings evening rain
cleansing the autumn landscape.
Lying on my bamboo mat, too lazy to get up
after my dream,
I contemplate the ants, those officials of the kingdom
beneath the southern branch.

A bamboo bed, rattan pillow,
vines climbing the bookcase—
here I loosen my sash, lie down for a nap
after the noonday meal.
As the wine gathers strength in me,
I travel to the land of dreams
and—suddenly—drop the book I was holding in my hand.