Short Poems

All the time I pray to Buddha
I keep on
killing mosquitoes.


Translated by Robert Hass

All pleasure is of this condition,
It pricks men forward to fruition,
But if enjoy'd, then like the humming Bee,
The honey being shed, away doth flee;
But leaves a sting, that wounds the inward heart
With gnawing grief and never-ending smart.

All Love asks is a heart to stay in;
A brave, true heart to be glad and gay in;
A garden of tender thoughts to play in;
A faith unswerving through cold or heat
Till the heart where Love lodges forgets to beat.

All blest are they whose heart with pity grows.
Who left Vaikuntha.their home,to serve mankind;
Who slight their person's needs ( it is not myth)
Whose hearts are broad ; Whose lips with honey flow .

An orange upon the table
Your dress on the rug
And you in my bed
Sweet present of the present
Freshness of the night
Warmth of my life.

Should Heaven send me any son,
I hope he's not like Tennyson.
I'd rather have him play a fiddle
Than rise and bow and speak an idyll.

Although I work, and seldom cease,
At Dumas pere and Dumas fils,
Alas, I cannot make me care
For Dumas fils and Dumas pere.

Bedenk, wenn Undank herb dich kränket,
Daß dankbar bis zum letzten Hauch
Der Mensch nur dann der Huld gedenket,
Wenn Wohltat ihn gebessert auch.

Alas, what shall I do for love?
For love, alasse, what shall I do?
Syth now so kynd
I do you fynde
To kepe yow me unto?
Alasse!

Alac, alac, what shall I do,
For care is cast into my hart,
And trew love lokked therto?