love poem

Thou God of love, thou ever blest!
Pity my suff'ring state;
When wilt thou set my soul at rest
From men of cruel hate?

Hard lot of mine! my days are cast
Among the sons of strife,
Whose never-ceasing insults waste
My golden hours of life.

Oh! might I fly to change my place,
How would I choose to dwell
In some wide, lonesome wilderness,
And leave these gates of hell!

Peace is the blessing that I seek:
How lovely are its charms!
I am for peace; but, when I speak,

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

Let me die now,
love,
for in love
not one night, not one day
of peace is mine!

When I love her
so much,
can I watch her pass by
like any other person,
not take her in my arms?

If I buy a horse,
you must go on foot, love —
Let it be!
Though we walk on stones,
you and I will go together!

This is what
the villagers told me:
" Your beloved husband
that you long for so,
from this mountainside
of Kamunabi
where the yellow leaves
scatter in confusion,
riding a horse
black as leopard-flower seeds,
crossed over the river shoals,
seven shoals in all —
We saw your husband
and he looked so sad! " —
that's what they told me.

ENVOY

I shouldn't have asked,
I should have kept still —
why did they have to tell me

In that little ugly hut
I'd like to burn down,
on a spread of rotten bedding
fit for the trash,
entwined in those
ugliest of ugly arms —
may they break! —
you're sleeping, I suppose —
and because of you every hour
of the madder-red day,
all through the night
black as leopard-flower seeds,
till the floor beneath me
creaks and groans,
I lie here tormented!

ENVOY

It is I, poor thing,
who burn up
my own heart —

I eat my food
but it has no flavor,
I sleep
but I know no rest —
your love,
my madder-cheeked,
is so hard to forget!

Loving someone
who doesn't love you —
it's like kowtowing to the back
of the hungry demon
at the great temple!