from WITHERED LEAVES
THINE EYES
Thine eyes are like the deep, deep sea,
Calm and peaceful, shining bright;
In their depths my old-time sorrow,
Like a speck, sinks out of sight.
Thine eyes are like a deep, deep well,
To the bottom crystal clear;
And like a star in heaven's depths
Hope is shining there, my dear.
PRIDE
Ne'er pass by with scornful laugh,
Or with scoffing boast!
What you laugh at now, perhaps,
Holds what you need most.
Maybe that which you despise
Might bring happiness;
Maybe what you now condemn
Bears love's greatest bliss.
Maybe what with silvery laugh
You may scorn today,
As a bitter, sad reproof
Will in memory stay.
DBSTINY
Ah, destiny! I utter no complaint,
My steps with loving wisdom thou dost lead;
For if the earth a harvest shall bring forth,
The plow must slay the flower with the weed.
The share relentless grinds deep through the sod,
And with a sigh, the flower breathes out its life.
The heart breaks, and with lips in silence pursed,
The soul swoons stricken in the mortal strife.
But thou dost follow and dost calmly cast
Into the broken clods and seeming death
New seeds to germinate within the soil,
And blow upon them thy life-giving breath.
NOON
Noon again.
The far-spreading unpeopled plain—
Wherever I turn, all around,
Not a sound!
Of man not a trace do I see,
Only grass like a billowy sea,
Pricked with flowers, deep green, changing shades,
And grasshoppers flit through its blades.
Without cease,
'Cross the river, a mirror of peace,
Up to the mountains' blue haze
Does my gaze
Move on till it sinks in the calm.
Perfumes drug my senses like balm,
The warmth lulls my soul in repose
Till I doze.
But listen!
Can that be a weeping I hear ?
Yet rather a sigh it resembles,
It trembles.
Perhaps it is but my own pain,
My sick heart that's throbbing again.
Ah, no! From somewhere on the air
The notes of a pipe reach my ear.
And then
In sweet music my heart joined once more,
It wept quiet tears while the pipe bore
It along.
Thee, my bright star, it brought back once more;
And to the pipe which played an old air,
Deep in my heart, sweet, debonair,
Came my song.
THE PLANE TREE'S GREEN
The plane tree's green, the plane tree's green,
The willow's greener still;
Of all the maids, 'tis she alone
My eye and heart can fill.
The rose is red, the rose is red,
The loveliest flower of all;
The rose is naught, the rose is naught
When I her face recall.
The golden stars in heaven's deeps
Blink in the summer sky;
There's not a star, above, below,
Can match her brilliant eye.
Sonorous bells and silvery chimes
With music charm the air;
The melody of her sweet voice
Brings heaven very near.
The heaving ocean, mighty sea,
Whose marge no eye can see;
But in my heart is greater woe,
THE CRANBERRY
"Cranberry crimson, why dost thou bendiow?
Why dost thou bend low?
Lov'st thou not the light, the sun dost not know,
The sun dost not know ?
"Art thou not afraid for thy buds' tender hue?
Thy buds' tender hue?
The storm dost thou fear, a bolt from the blue?
A bolt from the blue?"
"My buds they are strong, no storms me affright,
No storms me affright;
The sun is my friend, I'd bathe in his light,
I'd bathe in his light.
"Upwards to grow I've no strength to spend,
I've no strength to spend;
Therefore my branches I downwards must bend,
I downwards must bend.
"I cannot grow straight, for lo, thou hast spread,
O oak, thou hast spread
Above me like cloud thy shade overhead,
Thy shade overhead."
THE LITTLE DOVE
Ah, woe is me, alas!
I ache with bitter pain.
I let a little dove escape,
Which I can't catch again.
While she was nigh at hand
I never her allured,
But now I've lost her, in my heart
There's pain that can't be cured.
While she was nigh at hand,
I never gave it thought
That she so swiftly might depart
Where she could not be sought.
Yet when she flew away,
Came back no more to rest,
She'd carried with her in her flight
The heart from out my breast.
She carried off my dreams,
My hopes of happy hours,
As spring, departing, takes with her
The sweetest-smelling flowers.
THE LITTLE PATHWAY
Here is the little pathway
The maiden went along,
Who took from out my bosom
Its joyous, happy song.
Lo, this is where she sauntered,
Rejoicing as she went,
For with another lover
She talked in sweet content.
I followed in her footsteps,
Half-crazy in my mind,
And with my tears I watered
The dust she left behind.
Then, like a supple cornstalk
Which sways upon the air,
I glimpsed her for a moment,
As she was walking there.
And, as the diver fishes
The pearls from ocean's bed,
I hastily stole forward
And caught the words she said.
Alas! that little pathway,
It twists and winds along,
And twisted are my heartstrings,
Discords instead of song.
Deep down within my bosom
A dreary burden lay,
And life had lost all meaning
For me on that sad day.
All that I felt most precious,
The dearest thing of all,
On which my heart I nourished,
Was gone beyond recall. . . .
The thing which kept me joyous,
The thing which made me gay . . .
Oh, may that cursed pathway
Be swallowed up for aye!
AT THY WINDOW
If at thy window thou shouldst chance to hear at night
The sound of someone weeping, sobbing deep,
Oh, be not thou alarmed, do not rise up, my love.
To see what's there. Sleep on, beloved, sleep!
'Twill be no orphan child who wails a mother lost,
Nor hungry beggar asking charity,
But my lorn soul 'twill be, with longings unconsoled,
The love I bear thee, weeping bitterly.
THE GILLYFLOWER
Though thou as flower wilt not win renown,
O modest, sweetly-smelling gillyflower,
Though thou in crowded life but seernst to drown
In dulling routine, languid, stagnant, sour,
Yet thou shalt always be to me a crown
Of loveliness to cheer a lonely hour.
A flower that's never known or frost or heat,
An ideal bright—because so far, and sweet.
I'll bear thee in my heart my whole life long,
All steeped in virgin charms of freshness sweet;
Thy beauty I'll transfuse into a song
Of sparkling eyes which radiate joy complete,
Of coral lips which sing both smooth and strong.
Just as a golden fly in amber set,
In quiet beauty there for aye doth shine,
So shalt thou live in this same song of mine.
WANING POWERS
Like ox 'neath the yoke, and day after day,
I drag on my plough towards the finish
No longer with power any flame to emit
From fires that now surely diminish.
The heart's youthful dreams now fade fast away,
The well-spring of fantasy's seeping;
My words have become both arid and dry,
'Tis time for the harvest's scant reaping.
Scant harvest! It may be my seed stock was poor,
Too little and sown without wisdom.
But time would not wait. The cold rains come on,
The stars prophesy a bleak autumn.
HYMN TO BUDDHA
All hail, Buddha, to thee!
The light of our dark life!
Thou miracle, thou world
Of peace in furious strife!
Majestic, placid, still,
Thou didst eradicate
The allurement of a throne,
The powers of love and hate.
Once king, as beggar, thou,
Great athlete of the soul,
Dost light a hemisphere
With thy bright aureole.
Thou didst a throne forsake
Thy soul to seek and find.
Thou didst all fetters break
To liberate man's mind.
Thou didst long years of pain
Upon thyself impose
To find the bitter root
Of all our human woes.
Thou foundest that the root
Concealed in man's heart lies,
Where passion has its springs,
Whence hopes delusive rise,
Where wrath spurts into flame,
Where love begins to call,
Where error weaves the net
To hold the soul in thrall,
And where the world lays hold
To plunge it into strife,
And draw it in Sansara,
The frantic whirl of life.
But thou from Passion's hell
Wert able man to save,
Not with vain hopes delude
Of bliss beyond the grave.
Naught is immortal save
Our bodies, for we know
No atom e'er decays,
Though ages come and go.
But that which in man throbs,
And burns, and weeps, and cries,
Perceives and knows, creates,
That longs, exults, and flies—
That dies out like a spark,
As waves their surging cease,
To sink into Nirvana
And find eternal peace.
All hail, Buddha! So say
All we who worship thee,
Who struggle in the toils
Of Passion's misery.
O Buddha! I greet thee,
Who am about to leap
From out Sansara's whirl
Into Nirvana's sleep.
1897