Short Poems

O Would I were the salt sea-wind,
And you upon the beach
Would bare your breast and let me blow
Until your heart I reach.

He came and waved a little silver wand,
He dropped the veil that hid a statue fair,
He drew a circle with that pearly hand,
His grace confined that beauty in the air;—
Those limbs so gentle, now at rest from flight,
Those quiet eyes now musing on the night.

Behind the mountain I cultivated a garden and planted herbs and sunflowers;
In front of the cave I dug a pond for fish and stocked it.
On a single frame of purple vines, flowers cluster;
The rain is light and fine.
Sitting I hear the gibbons cry, I sing an old rhapsody;
Walking I see the swallows chattering, I recite a new poem
Since I have no affairs, I return to my library,
And close the wicker gate.

Though rising and falling
The waves wash
The moon that is reflected
In the autumn sea,
Yet its beauty is unchanged.

Though I realize that the time
Will come again,
Because I am myself
Not to be relied upon,
How precious is the spring!

(What) though men's words will flourish like the grass of the summer moor—
If my Sister and I walk hand in hand!

On the moor of Kasuga
The rising of smoke is visible.
The women surely
Must have plucked lettuces on the spring moor and must be boiling them.

The golden sun, with four tremendous steeds,
Cleaves the glad air, above the flowery meads;
The girdling hours, in dazzling dyes bedight,
Laugh the Light-bearer into headlong flight,—
Dazed by effulgence of the God of Day,
Aurora melts in mystery away—
Flees to the night, that vanished at her birth,
And yields the sun dominion of the earth.

(These) meetings in dreams,
How sad they are!
When, waking up startled
One gropes about,——
And there is no contact to the hand.

Pearl blooms ring kingfisher plumes,
Jewel leaves inset with gold jade
Artificial lotus seemingly uncontrived
Are flowers of apparent natural life.
Lower stems stroke her broidered collar,
Tiny footsteps set the jewels aquiver:
Just let me fix it on her cloudy coiffure,
Then moth eyebrows will be soon painted.