English

Green bubbles—new-brewed wine;
lumps of red—a small stove for heating;
evening comes and the sky threatens snow—
Could you drink a cup, I wonder?

Though I think I'd like to go to France
France is too far away;
I would at least put on a new jacket
and go on a carefree trip
When the train takes a mountain path
I would lean on an aquamarine window
and think alone of happy things
on a May morning when eastern clouds gather
leaving myself to my heart with fresh young grass flaring.

“Come, come, let's go home, look at today's sun.
The sun's gone down, look at today's sun.”
“I left my knit hat at the tea shop, I dropped your fan in the town.
I'll buy you one when I go to Miyoshi Town again.”
“Perhaps the town doesn't have them, he doesn't bring the fan!”
“The summer passes. Let's put the fan away!”

The year stood at its equinox
And bluff the North was blowing,
A bleat of lambs came from the flocks,
Green hardy things were growing;
I met a maid with shining locks
Where milky kine were lowing.

She wore a kerchief on her neck,
Her bare arm showed its dimple,
Her apron spread without a speck,
Her air was frank and simple.

She milked into a wooden pail
And sang a country ditty,
An innocent fond lovers' tale,
That was not wise nor witty,
Pathetically rustical,
Too pointless for the city.

My blessed Mother dozing in her chair
On Christmas Day seemed an embodied Love,
A comfortable Love with soft brown hair
Softened and silvered to a tint of dove,
A better sort of Venus with an air
Angelical from thoughts that dwell above,
A wiser Pallas in whose body fair
Enshrined a blessed soul looks out thereof.
Winter brought Holly then; now Spring has brought
Paler and frailer Snowdrops shivering;
And I have brought a simple humble thought
—I her devoted duteous Valentine—,

How strange it seems! These Hebrews in their graves,
Close by the street of this fair seaport town,
Silent beside the never-silent waves,
At rest in all this moving up and down!

The trees are white with dust, that o'er their sleep
Wave their broad curtains in the south-wind's breath,
While underneath these leafy tents they keep
The long, mysterious Exodus of Death.

And these sepulchral stones, so old and brown,
That pave with level flags their burial-place,
Seem like the tablets of the Law, thrown down

I envy e'en the fly its gleams of joy
In the green woods from being but a boy
Among the vulgar and the lowly bred
I envied e'en the hare her grassy bed
Innured to strife and hardship from a child
I traced with lonely step the desert wild
Sigh'd o'er bird pleasures but no nest destroyed
With pleasure felt the singing they enjoyed
Saw nature smile on all and shed no tears
A slave through ages though a child in years
The mockery and scorn of those more old
An Esop in the worlds extended fold
The fly I envy settling in the sun

O THE night was dark and the night was late,
And the robbers came to rob him;
And they picked the locks of his palace-gate,
The robbers that came to rob him—
They picked the locks of his palace-gate,
Seized his jewels and gems of state,
His coffers of gold and his priceless plate,—
The robbers that came to rob him.

But loud he laughed he in the morning red!—
For of what had the robbers robbed him?—
Ho! hidden safe, as he slept in bed,
When the robbers came to rob him,—
They robbed him not of a golden shred

Us farmers in the country, as the seasons go and come,
Is purty much like other folks,—we're apt to grumble some!
The Spring's too back'ard fer us, er too for'ard—ary one—
We'll jaw about it anyhow, and have our way er none!
The thaw's set in too suddent; er the frost's stayed in the soil
Too long to give the wheat a chance, and crops is bound to spoil!
The weather's eether most too mild, er too outrageous rough,
And altogether too much rain, er not half rain enugh!

Now what I'd like and what you'd like is plane enugh to see:

Of all good gifts that the Lord lets fall,
Is not silence the best of all?

The deep, sweet hush when the song is closed,
And every sound but a voiceless ghost;

And every sigh, as we listening leant,
A breathless quiet of vast content?

The laughs we laughed have a purer ring
With but their memory echoing;

And the joys we voiced, and the words we said,
Seem so dearer for being dead.

So of all good gifts that the Lord lets fall,
Is not silence the best of all?