Page:Diaries of Court Ladies of Old Japan.djvu/218

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Diaries of Court Ladies

The answer:

That night
The same moon shone down—
Thinking so I gaze,
But unsatisfied is my heart,
And my eyes are not contented
With moon-seeing.

She mused alone until the day dawned. The next night the Prince came again, but she knew not of it. A lady was living in the opposite house. The Prince's attendant saw a palanquin stopping before it and said to His Highness, "Some one has already come—there is a palanquin." "Let us retire," said the Prince, and he went away. Now he could believe the rumours. He was angry with her, yet being unable to make an end of it he wrote: "Have you heard that I went to you last night? It makes me unhappy that you don't know even that.

Against the hill of pines where the maiden pines for me,
Waves were high—that I had seen.
Yet to-day's sight, O ominous!"[1]


She received the letter on a rainy day, O unlooked-for disaster! She suspected slanderous tongues.

You only are my always-waited-for island—
What waves can sweep it away!

So she answered, but the Prince being somewhat troubled by the sight of the previous night, did not write to her for a long time.

  1. In the Japanese Matsu, n. = pine-tree; Matsu, v. = to wait. This poem refers to a famous one:

    If my heart grows faithless, and beat for another man,
    May waves pass over the hill of pines, where I pine for my beloved!

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