A kindly act is a kernel sown,
That will grow to a goodly tree,
Shedding its fruit when time has flown
Down the gulf of eternity.

While only I quaffed yonder secret spring,
'Twas clear and sweet to my imagining.
'Tis turbid now. Or it no more I drink,
But hang o'er other stream or river-brink.

A Scotchman whose name was Isbister
Had a maiden giraffe he called 'sister'
When she said 'Oh, be mine,
Be my sweet Valentine!'
He just shinned up her long neck and kissed her.

A sake barrel,
Born without hands, makes merry —
Cherry blossom time.

A weary life is that the sailors lead,
To whom no gift from Heaven or Fortune sent
Could offer worthy recompense. Poor souls,
Adventuring traffic far on slender chance,
They save, or gain, or lose all utterly.

The tsar our little father had grown old, very old. Now he could not even strangle a dove with his own hands. Sitting on his throne he was golden and frigid. Only his beard grew, down to the floor and farther.

Then someone else ruled, it was not known who. Curious folk peeped into the palace windows but Krivonosov screened the windows with gibbets. Thus only the hanged saw anything.

The cock crows three times; the sky is almost light.
Someone's lined up bowls of rice, along with flasks of tea.
Anxiously, the peasants rush to start the ploughing early,
I pull aside the willow shutter and gaze at the morning stars.

The beginning of eternity, the end of time and space,
The beginning of every end, and the end of every place.

Legs I have got, yet seldom do I walk;
I backbite many, yet I never talk:
In secret places most I seek to hide me,
For he who feeds me never can abide me.

I am just two and two, I am warm, I am cold,
And the parent of numbers that cannot be told.
I am lawful, unlawful -- a duty, a fault,
I am often sold dear, good for nothing when bought;
An extraordinary boon, and a matter of course,
And yielded with pleasure when taken by force.