Works

Although I shall not see his face
For the low riding of the ship,
The three armorial oak-leaves on his cloak
Will be enough.
But what if I make a mistake
And call to the wrong man?...

I made a bitter song
When I was a boy,
About a girl
With hot earth-coloured hair,
Who lived with me
And left me.

I made a sour song
On her marriage-day,
That ever his kisses...

I hide my love,
I will not say her name.
And yet since I confess
I love, her name is told.
You know that if I love
It must be ... Whom?
...

Come, my beloved! And I say again: Come, my beloved!
The doves are moaning and calling and will not cease.
Come, my beloved!

"The fairies have made me queen, and my heart is love....

Touch my hands with your fingers, yellow wallflower.
Did God use a bluer paint
Painting the sky for the gold sun
Or making the sea about your two black stars?

Treasure the touches of my fingers....

Reading in my book this cold night,
I have forgotten to go to sleep.
The perfumes have died on the gilded bed-cover;
The last smoke must have left the hearth
When I was not looking....

In a life where the clocks
Are slow or fast,
It is a pleasant thing
To die together
As we are dying.

From the Japanese of the Wife of Bes-syo Ko-saburo Naga-haru, (sixteenth century).

Your arm should only be
A spring night's dream;
If I accepted it to rest my head upon
There would be rumours
And no delight.

From the Japanese of the daughter of Taira-no Tsu-gu-naka.

Clear River twists nine times about
Clear River; but so deep
That none can see the green sand.
You hear the birds about Clear River:
Dik, dik, dik, dik, Diu dik.

A little woman with jade eyes...

Winter scourges his horses
Through the North,
His hair is bitter snow
On the great wind.
The trees are weeping leaves
Because the nests are dead,
Because the flowers were nests of scent...