Page:Anthology of Japanese Literature.pdf/410

406 :::And wish, as many a lover has wished,
 * The night would last even a little longer.
 * The heartless summer night is short as ever,
 * And soon the cockcrows chase away their lives.

Let us die in the wood before the dawn. He takes her hands.
 * At Umeda Embankment, the night ravens.

Tomorrow our bodies may be their meal. It’s strange this year is your unlucky year
 * Of twenty-five, and mine of nineteen too.
 * That we who love should both be cursed this way
 * Is proof how close the ties that join us.
 * All the prayers that I have made for this world
 * To the gods and to the Buddha, I here and now
 * Direct to the future, and in the world to come,
 * May we remain together on one lotus.

One hundred eight the beads her fingers tell
 * On her rosary; her tears increase the sum.
 * No end to her grief, but the road has an end.
 * Their heart and the sky are dark, the wind intense:
 * They have reached the wood of Sonezaki.


 * Shall it be there, shall it be here?
 * And when they brush the grass the dew which falls
 * Vanishes even quicker than their lives,
 * In this uncertain world a lightning flash—
 * A lightning flash or was it something else?

Oh, I’m afraid. What was that just now?

Those were human spirits. I thought that we’d be the only ones to die tonight, but others have gone ahead of us. Whoever they may be, we’ll journey together to the Mountain of Death. ''Namu Amida Butsu. Namu Amida Butsu.''