In classic beauty, cold, immaculate,
A voiceful sculpture, stern and still she stands,
Upon her brow deep-chiselled love and hate,
That sorrow o'er dead roses in her hands.
Farewell! 'But not for ever,' Hope replies,
Trace but his steps and meet him in the skies!
There nothing shall renew our parting pain,
Thou shalt not wither nor I weep again.
Mix a pancake,
Stir a pancake,
Pop it in the pan;
Fry the pancake,
Toss the pancake, -
Catch it if you can.
Though hourly comforts from the gods we see,
No life is yet life-proof from misery.
Moonlight slanting
through the bamboo grove;
a cuckoo crying.
Translated by Robert Hass
The stars around the fair moon fade
Against the night,
When gazing full she fills the glade
And spreads the seas with silvery light.
Dreaming in moonlight
feather brush the pounding surf
kissing stars goodnight
(Previously published in Borders and Time, March 2000)
Still as
On windless nights
The moon-cast shadows are,
So still will be my heart when I
Am dead.
Its spirit leans like a thin hook
or opens round like a Han-loom fan,
slender shadow whose nature is to be full,
seen everywhere in the human world.
Mount! I have watcht thee, at the fall of dew,
Array thee in thy panoply of gold,--
And then cast over it thy rosy vest,--
And last that awful robe that looks so cold,
Thy ghastly spectre--dress of nameless hue:
Then thou art least of earth, and then I love thee best.
