If this jewel thread of life
is to break, let it break:
living on
would be to endure
love's torment alone.

Not fleeting drops
of dew nor tears will pause:
winds of autumn
sweep the dwelling
loved by one now gone.

Though I try to hide them,
my countenance betrays
my feelings:
now everyone is asking
" Are you in love? "

" He is in love! " they say,
my name so quickly
rumored abroad,
though in secret
did I first long for you.

In boundless desire
lit by the fire of love
this night at least
may you tread the path of dreams
and no one blame us.

Since seeing in my sleep
the one whom I love,
it's these things
called dreams
I've learned to trust.

The plum blossoms
I thought to show
to you, my love,
cannot be told apart
from the falling snow.

That girl
lovely as the little oaks
of Mount Mikamo
in Shimotsukeno —
whose supper will she be fixing?

I'll not die of love
but go on living, it seems,
a grain of sand
floating on the foam
when the tide comes in

Here I thought I was
a big man,
hardly smaller than
earth and heaven —
and yet in love my courage fails