Among other creatures this is what I was.
Abilities depend on the realm;
realm also depends on abilities.
At birth I forgot completely by which path
I came.
I don't know, these years, which school
of monk I am.
Translation by Kazuaki Tanahashi and David Schneider in Essential Zen. 1994. HarperSanFrancisco.
I'll be the tree, if you'll be its flower;
I'll be the flower, if you'll be the dew;
I'll be the dew, if you'll be the sunshine
That glistens as it unites we two.
If you, My Love, should become the Heavens,
I'd be reborn as a star on high.
Even if you turned into Hell, itself,
I'd be damned, and I'd gladly fry.
The Original Poem in Hungarian:
Fa leszek, ha fának vagy virága.
Ha harmat vagy: én virág leszek.
Harmat leszek, ha te napsugár vagy...
Csak, hogy lényink egyesüljenek.
Ha, leányka, te vagy a mennyország:
Akkor én csillagá változom.
Ha, leányka, te vagy a pokol: (hogy
Egyesüljünk) én elkárhozom.
We dance round in a ring and suppose,
But the Secret sits in the middle and knows.
Youth of delight, come hither,
And see the opening morn,
Image of truth new born.
Doubt is fled, & clouds of reason,
Dark disputes & artful teazing.
Folly is an endless maze,
Tangled roots perplex her ways.
How many have fallen there!
They stumble all night over bones
of the dead,
And feel they know not what
but care,
And wish to lead others,
when they should be led.
I WOULD be as ignorant as the dawn,
That has looked down
On that old queen measuring a town
With the pin of a brooch,
Or on the withered men that saw
From their pedantic Babylon
The careless planets in their courses,
The stars fade out where the moon comes,
And took their tablets and made sums--
Yet did but look, rocking the glittering coach
Above the cloudy shoulders of the horses.
I would be -- for no knowledge is worth a straw --
Ignorant and wanton as the dawn.
Helen, thy beauty is to me
Like those Nicéan barks of yore,
That gently, o'er a perfumed sea,
The weary, way-worn wanderer bore
To his own native shore.
On desperate seas long wont to roam,
Thy hyacinth hair, thy classic face,
Thy Naiad airs have brought me home
To the glory that was Greece,
And the grandeur that was Rome.
Lo! in yon brilliant window-niche
How statue-like I see thee stand,
The agate lamp within thy hand!
Ah, Psyche, from the regions which
Are Holy-Land!
I walked abroad in a snowy day:
I ask'd the soft snow with me to play:
She play'd & she melted in all her prime,
And the winter call'd it a dreadful crime.
Sometimes with one I love I fill myself with
rage for fear I effuse unreturn'd love,
But now I think there is no unreturn'd love,
the pay is certain one way or another
(I loved a certain person ardently and my
love was not return'd,
Yet out of that I have written these songs).
A screen of cloud veils the mountain,
And cold monkeys squawk from green pines.
Fungi abound, but seeds dormant,
Searching for sprouts -- alas, in vain.
Somewhere near there's a fairy cave
Where flutes and lutes are often played.
Its Way is overgrown with moss,
And the old stone gate yields no clue.
Where have all the fairy folk gone?
Looking back, there's an endless plain
Where flowers fall like streaming tears.
It's easy to grow old; Where is
the messenger to bring some news?
To tell who the Golden Phoenix charms?
Waking from a deep, restless dream
What remains are blooms on the stream.
When I go away from you
The world beats dead
Like a slackened drum.
I call out for you against the jutted stars
And shout into the ridges of the wind.
Streets coming fast,
One after the other,
Wedge you away from me,
And the lamps of the city prick my eyes
So that I can no longer see your face.
Why should I leave you,
To wound myself upon the sharp edges of
the night?
Tiger Riding for Beginners 