Diaries of Court Ladies
not touched by them. She was only thinking that she was utterly forgotten by the Prince, who had never lost such an opportunity to write to her; but [at last] there came a poem:
Alas! that I should become like the Herder-God
Who can only gaze at the Weaving One
Beyond the River of Heaven.
The lady saw that he could not forget her and she was pleased.
Her poem:
I cannot even look towards that shore
Where the Herder-God waits:
The lover stars also might avoid me.
His Highness would read, and he would feel that he must not desert her. Towards the moon-hidden day [end of the month] he wrote to her:
I am very lonely. Please write to me sometimes as to one of your friends.
Her reply:
Because you do not wake you cannot hear—
The wind is sighing in the reeds—
Ah, nights and nights of Autumn!
The messenger who took the poem came back with one from him:
O my beloved, how can you think my sleep untroubled? Lately sad thoughts have been mine and never sleep is sound.
The wind blows over the reeds—
I will not sleep, but listen
Whether its sigh thrills my heart.
evening it was customary to write letters or pay visits in memory of the heavenly lovers.
