English

In autumn a dove looks as if loneliness were only his

In a wide garden peonies open amply

I sleep alone; throughout the night a male mosquito's lonely voice

The fifteenth of the eighth month:
If only my heart were as it is normally — today's moon!

Each morning a wren comes, bit by bit

Despite myself I become so childish at flying fireflies!

I

I F It be pleasant to look on, stalled in the packed serai ,
Does not the Young Man try Its temper and pace ere he buy?
If She be pleasant to look on, what does the Young Man say?
" Lo! She is pleasant to look on, give Her to me today! "

II

Yea, though a Kaffir die, to him is remitted Jehannum
If he borrowed in life from a native at sixty per cent per annum.

III

Blister we not for bursati? So when the heart is vexed,
The pain of one maiden's refusal is drowned in the pain of the next.

IV

3.
Therefore myself is that one only thing
I hold to use or waste, to keep or give;
My sole possession every day I live,
And still mine own despite Time's winnowing.
Ever mine own, while moons and seasons bring
From crudeness ripeness mellow and sanative;
Ever mine own, till Death shall ply his sieve;
And still mine own, when saints break grave and sing.
And this myself as king unto my King

2.
Thus am I mine own prison. Everything
Around me free and sunny and at ease:
Or if in shadow, in a shade of trees
Which the sun kisses, where the gay birds sing
And where all winds make various murmuring;
Where bees are found, with honey for the bees;
Where sounds are music, and where silences
Are music of an unlike fashioning.
Then gaze I at the merrymaking crew,
And smile a moment and a moment sigh

Thou that from the heavens art,
Every pain and sorrow stillest,
And the doubly wretched heart
Doubly with refreshment fillest,

I am weary with contending!
Why this rapture and unrest?
Peace descending
Come, ah, come into my breast!