Classic Poem

When I left to keep guard on the frontier
(For such was the monarch's decree),
My mother, with skirt uplifted,
Drew near and fondled me;

And my father, the hot tears streaming
His snow-white beard adown,
Besought me to tarry, crying:
“Alas! when thou art gone,

“When thou leav'st our gate in the morning,
No other sons have I,
And mine eyes will long to behold thee
As the weary years roll by;

“So tarry but one day longer,
And let me find some relief
In speaking and hearing thee speak to me!”
So wail'd the old man in his grief.

And on either side came pressing
My wife and my children dear,
Flutt'ring like birds, and with garments
Besprinkled with many a tear;

And clasp'd my hands, and would stay me,
For 'twas so hard to part;
But mine awe of the sovereign edict
Constrained my loving heart.

I went; yet each time the pathway
O'er a pass through the mountains did wind,
I'd turn me round—ah! so lovingly!—
And ten thousand times gaze behind.

But farther still, and still farther,
Past many a land I did roam,
And my thoughts were all thoughts of sadness,
All loving, and thoughts of home;—

Till I came to the shores of Sumi,
When the sovereign gods I prayed,
With offrings so humbly offered,—
And this the prayer that I made :—

“Being mortal, I know not how many
The days of my life may be;
And now the perilous pathway
That leads o'er the plain of the sea,

“Past unknown islands will bear me:
But grant that while I am gone
No hurt may touch father or mother,
Or the wife now left all alone!”

Yes, such was my prayer to the sea-gods;
And now the unnumber'd oars,
And the ship and the seamen to bear me
From breezy Naniwa's shores

Are there at the mouth of the river:—
Oh! tell the dear ones at home,
That I'm off as the day is breaking
To row o'er the ocean foam