Chinese
c. 940 – 976
The king on the rampart flies the white flag.
Deep within the palace how could I know?
One hundred forty thousand all disarmed!
Among these there was not a single man?
On the Death of the Country
Chinese
c. 940 – 976
10th Century Poems
Chinese
c. 940 – 976
Love Came and Flew
We present this work in honor of the poet’s 1,055th birthday.
Persian
967 – 1049
Love came and flew as blood in my veins
Emptied me of myself and filled me with beloved.
Each part of my being she conquered
Now a mere name is left to me and the rest is she.
A Mountain Brook
We present this work in honor of Mountain Day.
Japanese
c. 875 – c. 938
A mountain brook
Babbling is all I hear
Over the many-stoned palace
Swift as the current would I return to the days
I saw it-how I wish it could be so!
A Mountain Cherry
We present this work in honor of the Japanese holiday, Vernal Equinox.
Japanese
872 – 945
A mountain cherry
Through the drifting mists
Faintly
Seen thus there is a lady
I long for all the more.
I am a Lioness
We present this work in honor of Women’s Day.
Arab Andalusian
? – 1009
I am a lioness
and will never allow my body
to be anyone’s resting place. But if I did,
I wouldn’t yield to a dog ─
and O! the lions I’ve turned away!
Slave Boy
Arab Andalusian
917 – 1012
They shaved his head
to clothe him in ugliness
out of jealousy and fear
of his beauty.
They erased the night
and left him in dawn.
On Mount Ogura’s Peak
We present this work in honor of the 1,075th anniversary of the poet’s death.
Japanese
872 – 945
On Mount Ogura’s
Peak, he is wont to stand:
The belling stag
Has passed many an autumn;
The number? No one can tell.
Alas for Youth
Persian
935 – 1020
Much have I labored, much read o’er
Of Arabic and Persian lore,
Collecting tales unknown and known;
Now two and sixty years are flown.
Regret, and deeper woe of sin,
‘Tis all that youth has ended in,
And I with mournful thoughts rehearse
Bu Táhir Khusrawáni’s verse:
“I mind me of my youth and sigh,
Alas for youth, for youth gone by!”
There Was No Colour
In honor of the Japanese holiday, Culture Day, we present this work by one of ancient Japan’s most lyrical poets.
Japanese
872 – 945
There was no colour
To my heart, but with you
It is dyed and now
That it might fade
Is beyond imagination.
The Walnut
Arab Andalusian
? – 977
In its double skirt enwrapped,
Fair as aught I ever clapped
Eyes on, as when eyelids close
Over slumberful repose.
Opened to the light of day
By a dagger, you might say
‘Tis the pupil of an eye
Whetted on its lid, to spy.
Inwardly it doth appear
Soft and rounded as an ear
And, to make my image true,
With its convolutions too.
Poets Corner 