Of Old Japan
He smiled over the poem. As he was reading sutras those days he sent the following poem:
The way of meeting is not god-forbidden.
But I am on the seat of the Law
And cannot leave it.
Her answer:
Then will I go thither to seek you,
Only do you enlarge the seat!
Once it snowed heavily and he sent her a poem affixed to a branch covered with snow:
Snow falls, and on all the branches
Plum flowers are in bloom,
Though it is not yet spring.
This was unexpected and she wrote back:
Thinking that plum flowers were in bloom
I broke the branch,
And snow scattered like the flowers.
The next morning early he sent a poem:
These winter nights lovers keep vigil.
Lying on one's lonely bed
Day dawns
And the eyelids have not met.
Her answer:
Can it be true?
On Winter nights eyes are shut in ice [frozen tears]
And midnight hours are desolate.
I wait for dawn, although no joy is in it.
What the Prince had been thinking of he wrote in heart-dwindling words, saying, "I think I cannot live out my life in this world," so she wrote back:
For me, it is fitting to speak of these things,
For they recall
The romance of past days.
