Oh, how infinite, how unspeakably great, are the heavens!
Yet by frivolity's hand downwards the heavens are pulled!

Celle qui tord au vent sa lourde chevelure
Où le rouge soleil a laissé sa brûlure,
Avant que de descendre aux gouffres de la mer,
C’est Astarté, la fille implacable de l’onde,
L’immortelle Beauté qui torture le monde,
Dont la lèvre, en douleurs comme en plaisirs féconde
A gardé pour nos pleurs le sel du flot amer.

Assassins find accomplices. Man's merit
Has found him three, the hawk, the hound, the ferret.

Lo! the wild rabbit, happy in the pride
Of qualities to meaner beasts denied,
Surveys the ass with reverence and fear,
Adoring his superior length of ear,
And says: 'No living creature, lean or fat,
But wishes in his heart to be like That!'

A sweet high treble threads its silvery song,
Voice of the restless aspen, fine and thin
It trills its pure soprano, light and long-
Like the vibretto of a mandolin.

Asleep! O sleep a little while, white pearl!
And let me kneel, and let me pray to thee,
And let me call Heaven’s blessing on thine eyes,
And let me breathe into the happy air,
That doth enfold and touch thee all about,
Vows of my slavery, my giving up,
My sudden adoration, my great love!

Asleep in spring I did not heed the dawn
Till the birds broke out singing everywhere.
Last night, in the clamour of wind and rain, How many flowers have fallen
do you suppose?

Asked how old he was,
the boy in the new kimono
stretched out all five fingers.


Translated by Robert Hass

As they begin to rise again
Chrysanthemums faintly smell,
After the flooding rain

as the poems go into the thousands you
realize that you've created very
little.