When we two slip at night to the skies And find one star that we keep As a trysting-place to which our eyes May lead our souls ere sleep, Should we not pause for a little space And think how many must sigh Because they gaze over starry ways With no heart-comrade by? When we two then lie down to our dreams That deepen still the delight Of our wandering where stars and streams Stray in immortal light, Should we not grieve with the myriads From East of earth to West Who lay them down at night but to drown The longing for some loved breast? Ah, yes, for life has a thousand gifts, But love it is gives life. Who walks thro his world alone e'er lifts A soul that is sorrow-rife. But they to whom it is given to tread The moon-path and not sink Can ever say the unhappiest way Earth has is fair to the brink. DUSK AT HIROSHIMA Softly the bamboo bends As the sun sinks down unglowing, Softer the willow ends A sigh to the dusk around. Quickly the brief bat wends His flittering way, thro flowing Fields of the autumn air, That are husht of the city's sound. Temple and thatch and stream Are forgetting the light that lingers, Mountain and mist in dream Already are lost, afar. Faintingly comes the beam Of the moon--then viewless fingers Tinkle a samisen, And astir on the East is a star. THE WANDERER When moonlight on the face Of the great Buddha falls As he sits in Nirvana On the shores of Kamakura, When the pines about him place Soft shadows at his feet Like offerings of penitence and tears, I hear in the grace Of the wind's low susurra A voice that calls me still To my home within the West, But I've lingered overlong In the East's strange arcana And no more is there desire within my breast. I left it when a boy, That far home and, alas, 'Twas so fair that my dreaming Earth had fairer was a madness. I left it for the joy Of wandering the world, And heathen-hearted lands have I beheld! But when at last cloy Of delight brought sadness Like lotus to my veins, And forgetfulness seemed fate, I had fared unto this shrine And the moon as now was beaming, And here have I awaited--and await. But not for any gift Of its god, or any grace That in living or in dying Men in text or sutra sigh for. And not for any shrift Nirvana has, or skies Where Paradise imperishably smiles. But only for the sift Of the wind, that seems to die for My soul's enduring peace In the dwelling of the Tomb. And only for the drift Of the moon that comes denying Eternity to everything but Doom. IN A SHINTO TEMPLE GARDEN Under the torii, robed in green, The old priest creeps to the shrine. Over the bridge the still stork stands, The crow caws not in the pine.