Читать книгу Net of Fireflies - Harold Stewart - Страница 12

WAKING AT AN INN

Through white mosquito-nets, as yet undrawn,

How cool the bay looks in the summer dawn!

—SÔSEKI

THE PAVILION ON THE LAKE

Here in the morning cool, the breezes waft

The perfume from the lotus-blooms aloft.

—RIMPÛ

UNSEEN TILL NOW

How visibly the gentle morning airs

Stir in the caterpillar's silky hairs!

—BUSON

REFRESHING

So cool the summer melons look, a few

Spattered with mud-flecks from the morning dew.

—BASHÔ

COUNTRY REFINEMENT

The stooping women plant their rice along

The terrace—soiled in everything but song.

—RAIZAN

WITH SHARPENED SENSES

When tall green blades have pierced the iris bed,

The cuckoo's pointed cry strikes overhead.

—BASHÔ

INNOCENCE

The newborn foal, who stands with knock-kneed pose,

Over the iris flowers pokes out his nose.

—ISSA

SOUND OF THE CROSS

The cuckoo's singing as it speeds along

Inscribes a cross against the skylark's song.

—KYORAI

SUMMER WATERCOLOUR

The iris standing in the marsh: so blue,

Its roots have drunk the sky's reflected hue.

—HÔ-Ô

RICH APPAREL

The happy beggar, whom the passer loathes,

Wears Earth and Heaven as his summer clothes.

—KIKAKU

THE NOON CONVOLVULUS

Ah! It will never wash its face of blue

In dew of morning or in evening dew.⁴

—YAYU

BROWSING

This butterfly which on a poppy clings

Opens and shuts a booklet's paper wings.

—HÔ-Ô

PURE QUALITY

Lilies that lean across my brushwood fence:

Have clouds of snow a whiteness so intense?

—SHIKÔ

PRELUDE FOR KOTO

A lightning-flash! The liquid chime of dew

Dripping throughout the forest-high bamboo.

—BUSON

INVENTION

People caught by suddenly pouring skies:

What ingenious hats they improvise!

—OTSUYÛ

HIROSHIGE'S "RAINSTORM AT SUWARA"

Against the slant grey rain, in silhouette,

Men and mules are hurrying through the wet.

—HÔ-Ô

THE MONSOON

"How humid are the rains!" I said; whereat

A large ant walked across my rice-straw mat

—SHIRÔ

SAMIDARE

The downpour prickles on the pond, so sharp

It hits the heads of shallow-floating carp.

—SHIKI

THE WATERFALL

Its threads of water widen with the rain

Day after day, until they twist a skein.

—FUHAKU

DISCORDANT QUARTET

Four magpies on a crooked pine-tree fork;

Their harsh beaks gape, and quarrelsome their talk.

—HÔ-Ô

THE GARDEN OF RYÔAN-JI

Mossbound and weatherworn, the boulders stand;

Around them flows a stream of silver sand.⁵

—HÔ-Ô

THE ARTIST

His brush abruptly leaps and flicks and swishes:

Swiftly across the paper swim three fishes.

—HÔ-Ô

THE TASTE OF TEA

Whisked to a steaming emerald froth, the cha

Is passed around. We sip its flavour: Ah!

—HÔ-Ô

DANCERS OF OLD KYOTO

The geisha flirt their fans; their sashes trail;

Like goldfish undulating fins and tail.

—GETTO

DEEP REFLECTION

Patiently fishing in the lake, the crane's

Long red legs have shortened since the rains.

—BASHÔ

THE ART OF ARCHERY

After the sudden shower, along the strand

Green pine-needles are sticking in the sand.

—SHIKI

THE OPPOSITES

With flowering tongues, the honeysuckle twines

Among the aloe's armament of spines.

—HÔ-Ô

FRIGHTENED DELIGHT

A sudden downpour! Thunderclouds are cracking!

And round the farmhouse all the ducks run, quacking!

—KIKAKU

HOME-GROWN

Washed by monsoonal summer's rainy weeks,

How chill and white, how fresh and green, are leeks!

—BASHÔ

ANOTHER DAY, ANOTHER WAY

Between the barley's bending ears of grain,

The path has narrowed since the heavy rain.

—JÔSÔ

KOAN

What if a housefly on the swatter stands

In perfect faith, and wipes its feet and hands?

—ZEN PARADOX

KANNON'S ANSWER

Oh, do not kill that fly! It would entreat:

See how it wrings its little hands and feet!

—ISSA

MIDSUMMER VIGIL

Dawn already, after the shortest night,

Has dimmed the harbour lanterns, still alight.

—SHIKI

LIVING IN POVERTY

Though faint and from afar, the cool breeze comes

Crookedly down my alley in the slums.

—ISSA

RICH REMINISCENCE

Those noonday naps: the paper hut so small,

My feet pressed gingerly against the wall.

—BASHÔ

BEDMATES

Dreaming of battles, was I slain in fight?

I'm peppered with rosettes: those fleas can bite!

—KIKAKU

AN APOLOGY

Sorry my hut's so small; but you are free

To do your jumping practice, Mr. Flea.

—ISSA

SUMMER AT NIKKÔ

A glittering sea of green and gold, they shine,

The sunlit leaves submerging Nikkô Shrine.

—BASHÔ

STARTLED

Out of the golden hall the swallow's fright

Escapes with swift calligraphy of flight.

—BUSON

IN THE FOREST

The fawn with sunbeam-spotted coat in vain

Shakes off the butterfly, to doze again.

—ISSA

INTOXICATION

A furry bee nuzzles amid the head

Of yellow ginger-blossoms pronged with red.

—HÔ-Ô

"BUT THOSE UNHEARD . . ."

Deep in the summer shade, when leaves were mute,

I heard the Suma Temple's unblown flute.

—BASHÔ

WANDERER FROM THE WORLD

Deepen, O cuckoo in the wood, my mood

Of mutability, my solitude. . . .

—BASHÔ

WEATHERWISE

Midsummer must have come: the carp all doze,

Each supping air with half-protruded nose.

—RAIZAN

HEAD-HIGH, THE PAMPAS GRASS

Crossing the summer moor, what guides our course?

The hay a peasant shoulders for his horse.

—BASHÔ

FEAR

The snake has slid away; but still its eyes

Glare at me from the grass and paralyse.

—KYOSHI

THE RUINS OF TAKADACHI FORT

Over the warriors summer grasses wave:

The aftermath of dreams, however brave.

—BASHÔ

SPLIT BY THE WIND

The butterfly, with airy stitches, sews

Together again the barley's parted rows.

—SORA

SILENCE

A frail white butterfly, beneath the spell

Of noon, is sleeping on the huge bronze bell

—BUSON

MIDSUMMER LULL

How hot, on afternoons without a breeze,

The cobwebs hanging from the dusty trees!

—ONITSURA

A RAUCOUS SOLITUDE

What burning stillness! Brass cicada-drones

Drill their resonance into rocks and stones.

—BASHÔ

THE TORTOISE-SHELL CAT

The brazen sunflower glowed, as underneath

A tigress bore her cub between her teeth.

—BUSHI

AFTER THE DEATH OF HER SMALL SON

Alas! How far beyond recall today,

My hunter after dragonflies, you stray!

—CHIYO

WITH MINDLESS SKILL

The erratic swallow, as it dips and veers,

Almost grazes the nodding barley-ears.

—IZAN

IRONICAL

How hot the pedlar, panting with his pack

Of fans—a load of breezes on his back!

—KAKÔ

PRIMEVAL BREATH

High in the air the mounting cloud-mass swells,

Over the dried marsh where a python dwells.

—SHIKI

ETERNAL LIFE

A shrill cicada dinning: from its cry,

None could foretell how quickly it must die.⁶

—BASHÔ

SATORI

I bowed before the Buddha, now obscure,

Now bright with lightning, on the stormy moor.

—KAKEI

INDRA'S NET

The sun-shower, mirrored in a globe of rain,

Hangs for one moment, never seen again.

—HÔ-Ô

LATE VICTORY

The thunderstorm retreating, sunset still

Burns on a tree in which cicadas shrill.

—SHIKI

THE RIVER'S MOUTH

Swollen by floods, Mogami's estuary

Swallowed the red-hot sunball undersea.

—BASHÔ

HIDDEN INFLUENCE

A Buddhist sutra, calmly chanted, fills

With cool refreshing air the fields and hills.

—KYORAI

DEATH BY ECSTASY

Discarded, one cicada's casket lay:

Did it utterly sing itself away?

—BASHÔ

RELAXATION

The evening cool: enjoyed beneath the sallows,

Paddling amid my shadow in the shallows.

—BUSON

ISSA'S ADVICE

You plump green watermelons, keeping cool,

Turn into frogs, if boys pass by your pool!

—ISSA

RUSTIC SECURITY

I shut my brushwood gate; but should that fail

To stop intruders, for a lock—this snail!

—ISSA

A SLICE OF MELON

The melon-fields lie waiting under skies

Of sultry darkness for the moon to rise.

—SORA

THE METEOR

Just as that firefly, glowing on a spray

Of leaves, dropped off—it suddenly shot away!

—BASHÔ

FIRST GLIMPSE

Monsoonal rains; and then one night there shines,

As though by stealth, the moon between the pines.

—RYÔTA

SITTING ON KYORAL'S VERANDA

A cuckoo called! The moonlight filters through

Shadow-shifting thickets of cool bamboo.

—BASHÔ

AFTER THE HEAT

A moonlit evening: here beside the pool,

Stripped to the waist, a snail enjoys the cool.

—ISSA

ON A DRAWING BY SOKEI-AN

The black cat's face: an unexpected dawn

Has swallowed midnight in a wide pink yawn.

—HÔ-Ô

FLORAL REPAIRS

The morning-glory flowers have opened, patching

My hermitage's roof which needed thatching.

—ISSA

THE TASK

O timid snail, by nature weak and lowly,

Crawl up the cone of Fuji slowly, slowly. . . .

—ISSA

RESIDUES

A snail has left its netted trail: the faint

Sutra written in silver by a saint.

—HÔ-Ô

BEING AND BECOMING

The sun set on the swamp with orange glare

A hall of gnats revolving in the air.

—HÔ-Ô

BY THE MERE

An evening breeze across the reedy hanks:

Ripples around the blue-grey heron's shanks.

—BUSON

THE OLD FOLLY

The octopus, while summer moonshine streams

Into the trap, enjoys its fleeting dreams.

—BASHÔ

STILL AND CLEAR

A sea beach silvered by the moon; and then

Nearby, the cries of distant fishermen.

—SHÛRIN

NEHAN

A cuckoo's cry is lost in silence, while

Vanishing toward a solitary isle. . . .⁷

—BASHÔ