Behind this door
Now buried in deep grass
A different generation will celebrate
The Festival of Dolls.
There once was a corpulent carp
Who wanted to play on a harp,
But to his chagrin
So short was his fin
That he couldn't reach up to C sharp.
Early one day, the Muse, when eagerly bent on adornment,
Follow'd a swift-running streamlet, the quietest nook by it seeking.
Quickly and noisily flowing, the changeful surface distorted
Ever her moving form; the goddess departed in anger.
Yet the stream call'd mockingly after her, saying: "What, truly!
Wilt thou not view, then, the truth, in my mirror so clearly depicted?"
But she already was far away, on the brink of the ocean,
In her figure rejoicing, and duly arranging her garland.
The mountain summits sleep, glens, cliffs, and caves
Are silent;-all the black earth's reptile brood,
The bees, the wild beasts of the mountain wood;
In depths beneath the dark red ocean's waves
Its monsters rest; whilst, wrapt in bower and spray,
Each bird is hush'd, that stretch'd its pinions to the day.
The morning glory also
turns out
not to be my friend.
Translated by Robert Hass
The morning glories
bloom, securing the gate
in the old fence
ALL is one issue, every skirmish tells,
And war is but the picture in the story;
The plot's below: from time to time upwells
A scene of blood and glory,
That makes us understand the allegory,—
A lurid flash of verse,—and at its close
Recurring, undiscipherable prose.
If thou feelest not the beautiful, still thou with reason canst will it;
And as a spirit canst do, that which as man thou canst not.
The moon tonight--
I even miss
her grumbling.
Translated by Robert Hass
THE stars about the lovely moon
Fade back and vanish very soon,
When, round and full, her silver face
Swims into sight, and lights all space
