Works

Let the wind's breath
Blow in the glades of the clouds
Until they close;
So that the beauty of these girls
May not escape.

From the Japanese of So-dzyo Hend-zyo.

When she appears the daylight envies her garment,
The wanton daylight envies her garment
To show it to the jealous sun.

And when she walks,
All women tall and tiny...

The season of parting has come up with the wind;
My girl has hollowed my heart with the hot iron of separation.

Keep away, doctor, your roots and your knives are useless....

Beauty with the flame shawl, do not repulse me;
Breathing idol of rose ivory, look at me;
Beauty with the flame shawl, let me say a little thing,
Lend your small ears to my quick sighing....

Grief is hard upon me, Master, for she has left me;
The black dust has covered my pretty one.

My heart is black, for the tomb has taken my friend;
How pleasantly would go the days if my friend were here....

The lover to his lass: I have fallen before your door.
I came to ask for alms and have lost my all,
I had a copper-shod quarter-staff but the dogs attacked me,...

The world is fainting,
And you will weep at last.

The world is fainting
And falling into a swoon.

The world is turning and changing;
The world is fainting,
And you will weep at last....

My heart is torn by the tyranny of women very quietly;
Day and night my tears are wearing away my cheeks very quietly.

Life is a red thing like the sun setting very quietly;...

I am burning, I am crumbled into powder,
I stand to the lips in a tossing sea of tears.

Like a stone falling in Hamun lake I vanish;
I return no more, I am counted among the dead.
...

To-day I saw Laila's breasts, the hills of a fair city
From which my heart might leap to heaven.

Her breasts are a garden of white roses
Having two drifted hills of fallen rose-leaves.
...

I was gathering
Leaves of the Wakana
In springtime.
Why did the snow fall
On my dress?

From the Japanese of the Mikado Ko-ko Ten-no, (ninth century).

Tears in the moonlight,
You know why,
Have marred the flowers
On my rose sleeve.
Ask why.

From the Japanese of Hide-Yoshi.

Kill me if you will not love me.
Here are flints;
Ram down the heavy bullet, little leopard,
On the black powder.

Only you must not shoot me through the head,
Nor touch my heart;...

Head in hand, I look at the paper leaf;
It is still white.

I look at the ink
Dry on the end of my brush.

My soul sleeps.
Will it ever wake?
...

They put wild olive and acanthus up
With tufts of yellow wool above the door
When a man died in Greece and in Greek Islands,
Grey stone by the blue sea,
Or sage-green trees down to the water's edge....

Lonely rose out-splendouring legions of roses,
How could the nightingales behold you and not sing?

By Rustwell of Georgia (from the Tariel, twelfth century).

Old bamboos are about my house,
And the floor of my house is untidy with old books.
It is sweet to rest in the shade of it
And read the poems of the masters.

But I remember a delightful fisherman...

I am the Gao flower high in a tree,
You are the grass Long Mai on the path-side.
When heat comes down after the dews of morning
The flower grows pale and tumbles on the grass,...

I'm a girl of Ke-Mo village
Selling my rice wine on the road.
Mine is the strongest rice wine in the land,
Though my bottle is so patched and dirty.
These silly rags are not my body,...

She seemed so bored,
I wanted to embrace her by surprise;
But then the scalding waters
Fell from her eyes and burnt her roses.

I offered her a cup....

And came to paradise....
...