English

Even while chopping
the dried vegetables
her heart was aflutter

When the horse stays in
the groom makes love at home.

What temptress bodied of the devil's sighs,
So termagant and tyrannous and strong,
As take thee from the flowers of Paradise —
As bring thee from the banquet and the song,

To waste the days in agony with Doubt,
To peer into the charnel-pits of Death?
God's mysteries are past all finding out.
Life's joys are fugitive as human breath.

Because the ways of God are strange and dim,
Are other things inevitably vain?
Here is a goblet, rosy to the brim,
Will wash cold sorrow from thy heart and brain.

I

The dead leaves fall.
The air is cold and chill;
The world asleep and still.
The pine trees tall
In the dark wood
Stand brown and bare
In sunless solitude.
And everywhere
Reigns o'er the land a silence dread and drear,
O'er snow-capped barren hill and moor and mere.

II

But, far away,
Borne in a breeze's wake,
Thro' shaggy fern and brake, —
A stream's low lay
Whispers along;

On a veranda
smashing to bits
a silver-glazed bowl.

Watch out for
the drawn saber!

I

Mary, when thou wert a virgin,
Ere the first, the fatal sin
Stole into thy bosom's chamber,
Leading six companions in;
Ere those eyes had wept an error,
What thy beauty must have been!

II

Ere those lips had paled their crimson,
Quivering with the soul's despair,
Ere the smile they wore had withered
In thine agony of prayer,
Or, instead of pearls, the tear-drops
Gleamed amid thy streaming hair;

III

While, in ignorance of evil,
Still thy heart serenely dreamed,

Spread thick above, ye clouds, your dusky veil,
Hide from yon stars the Savior's bitter woe;
Breathe, ye night winds, in murmurs sad and low,
Or lift, in fitful gusts, your mournful wail:
Listen, thou Olivet! and Kedron's vale
Catch the sad accents that are borne to thee
From yonder shade — thine own Gethsemane —
As when one pleadeth, and doth not prevail.
See, to the earth the holy sufferer sinks;
Weighs on his heart an anguish all unknown;
Bursts from his lips the thrice repeated prayer,

Longing for the plum blossoms
I pray to the white deutzia —

A little while—He said—and hence I go;
And ye shall seek me, but ye shall not find;
Ye may not follow now; but left behind,
My witnesses, the world by you shall know
The truth, that truth strike root and grow;
A holy kingdom rise and wide extend;
Till e'en earth's proudest shall submissive bend,
And unto me all tribes and nations flow!
Behold! a new command to you I give;
Love one another; all who will be mine,
Let love in one blest fellowship combine,
That each for all, and all for each may live.

Substance Speaks to Shadow

Heaven and Earth
endure and do not perish;
Mountains and rivers
do not change with time.
Grasses and trees partake
in this constant principle,
Although the frost and dew
cause them to wilt or flourish
Of all things Man, they say,
is most intelligent and wise,
And yet he alone
is not like them in this
Appearing by chance

Southern Kyoto —
on top of the piled snow
the evening rain.