Page:Japanese plays and playfellows (1901).djvu/269

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been validated.
PLAYING WITH FIRE
233

day, and shall never forget the happy times we spent together in Rose and Kyōto. However long I write, there is no end to it, so I shall look for a further occasion to tell you my love. In respectful obedience,

"O Maru."

The letter contained an enclosure, which it required the intervention of a Japanese friend to interpret. Whether the girl had herself written the six poems which follow, or, as it seems to me more probable, had adapted them with slight alterations from a popular song-book, I cannot say. They form both epilogue and moral to this typical tale.

1.

"Could I but meet you!
Could I but see you!
Waves roll between us;
Wishing is vain.


2.

"Thinking about you,
Watching your likeness;
Yet the watched likeness
Says not a word.


3.

"You, my French master,
Living in Paris,
I am Awazu's
Single lone pine.


4.

'In mine ears waking,
In mine ears dreaming,
Ever one sound is,
That of thy voice.