Page:Anthology of Japanese Literature.pdf/299

Rh They talk of the moon tree, the laurel that grows in the Garden of the Moon. … But for me there is but one true tree, this laurel by the lake. Oh, may the drum that hangs on its branches give forth a mighty note, a music to bind up my bursting heart. :::Listen! the evening bell to help me chimes;
 * But then tolls in
 * A heavy tale of day linked on to day,

(speaking for the Gardener): And hope stretched out from dusk to dusk.


 * The longed-for stroke.

I was old, I shunned the daylight,
 * I was gaunt as an aged crane;
 * And upon all that misery
 * Suddenly a sorrow was heaped,
 * The new sorrow of love.
 * The days had left their marks,
 * Coming and coming, like waves that beat on a sandy shore…

Oh, with a thunder of white waves
 * The echo of the drum shall roll.

The afterworld draws near me,
 * Yet even now I wake not
 * From this autumn of love that closes
 * In sadness the sequence of my years.

And slow as the autumn dew
 * Tears gather in my eyes, to fall
 * Scattered like dewdrops from a shaken flower
 * On my coarse-woven dress.
 * See here the marks, imprint of tangled love,
 * That all the world will read.

I ssaid “I will forget,” And got worse torment so
 * Than by remembrance. But all in this world