At sunrise
on Kilimanjaro
what is it the three peaks
— grandfather,
father,
and son —
in silent communication
agree to do?

By a tree of dawn
just the height of a giraffe
they reveal a giraffe couple
as they tear off and eat the leaves.
They reveal a kiss as the couple recalls
love, a kiss just as still
as still can be.

The loved one is not only the beloved; it is also everything yearned for. If all humankind is the beloved for Sakyamuni, philosophy is the beloved for Kant. If the gentle spring rain is the beloved for the rose, then Italy is the beloved for Mazzini. The loved one is not only that which is loved but also that which loves.
If love be freedom, then the beloved also is freedom. But aren't you all bound helplessly by the high-sounding name of freedom? You have a love, even you? If so, it is no love, it is your shadow.

May my love become an alder tree
of Kumsong in Hoeyang, and
I an arrowroot vine in
the third month or fourth:
Like a spider's web around a butterfly,
the vine goes around the tree,
tightly this way, tightly that,
wrongly loosened, properly wound,
bound, then loosened from down below
all the way to the top,
tightly winding round and round
without a single gap, and
unchanging, day and night,
it's coiled around, twisting.
Though, in the heart of winter,
we may bear wind, rain, snow, and frost,

I send you, my love,
select branches of the willow.
Plant them to be admired
outside your bedroom window.
If a night rain makes them bud,
think that it is I.

ON LOVE OF PRAISE

I.

Of all the springs within the mind
Which prompt her steps in Fortune's maze,
From none more pleasing aid we find,
Than from the genuine love of praise.

II.

Nor any partial, private end
Such reverence to the public bears;
Nor any passion, Virtue's friend,
So like to Virtue's self appears.

III.

For who in glory can delight,
Without delight in glorious deeds?
What man a charming voice can slight,
Who courts the echo that succeeds?

IV.

But not the echo on the voice

The king is father,
And his ministers are loving mothers.
His subjects are foolish children;
They only receive what love brings.

Schooled in saving the masses,
The king feeds and guides them.
Then no one will desert this land —
This is the way to govern a country.

Peace and prosperity will prevail if each —
King, minister, and subject — lives as he should.

I

N OW I who oft have carolled of the Spring,
Must chant of Autumn and the dirgeful days;
Of windless dawns enveiled in dewy haze,
Of cloistered evenings when no sweet birds sing,
But every note of joy hath trooped and taken wing.

II

But when I saw Her first, you scarce could say
If it were Summer still, or Autumn yet.
Rather it seemed as if the twain had met,

I

I HEARD the voice of my own true love
Ripple the sunny weather.
Then away, as a dove that follows a dove,
We flitted through woods together.

II

There was not a bush nor branch nor spray
But with song was swaying and ringing.
" Let us ask of the birds what means their lay,
And what is it prompts their singing. "

III

We paused where the stichwort and speedwell grew

Since to be loved endures,
— To love is wise:
Earth hath no good but yours,
— Brave, joyful eyes:

Earth hath no sin but thine,
— Dull eye of scorn:
O'er thee the sun doth pine
— And angels mourn.

To my love I whisper, and say
Knowest thou why I love thee? — Nay:
Nay, she saith; O tell me again. —

When in her ear the secret I tell,
She smileth with joy incredible —

Ha! she is vain — O nay —
Then tell us! Nay, O nay.

But this is in my heart,
That Love is Nature's perfect art,
And man hath got his fancy hence,
To clothe his thought in forms of sense.

Fair are thy works, O man, and fair
Thy dreams of soul in garments rare,
Beautiful past compare,
Yea, godlike when thou hast the skill