I NEGLECTED to appraise your worth being blindly sure of my possession. The days followed each other and the nights carrying your offerings to my feet. I looked at them through the corner of my eyes as they were being sent to my storehouse. April's honeysuckles added their scent to your gifts, the full moon of the autumn night touched them with its glimmer. Often you poured the flood of your dark tresses upon my lap and your eyes swam with tears while you said: My tribute to you, my king, is pitifully meagre; I have failed to give you more, not having any more to give. The days follow each other and the nights but you are no longer here today. I come to open at last my storehouse, and take up the chain of the jewels, that came from your hands on my neck. My pride that remained indifferent kisses the dust where you left your footprints. Today I gain you truly for with my sorrow I have paid the price of your love.
MY GUEST HAS come to my door in this autumn morning. Sing, my heart, sing thy welcome! Make thy song the song of the sunlit blue, of the dew-damp air, of the lavish gold of harvest fields, of the laughter of the loud water. Or stand mute before him for awhile gazing at his face; Then leave thy house and go out with him in silence.
I HAVE donned this new robe to-day because my body feels like singing. It is not enough that I am given to my love once and for ever, but out of that I must fashion new gifts every day; and shall I not seem a fresh offering, dressed in a new robe? My heart, like the evening sky, has its endless passion for colour, and therefore I change my veils, which have now the green of the cool young grass and now that of the winter rice. To-day my robe is tinted with the rain-rimmed blue of the sky. It brings to my limbs the colour of the boundless, the colour of the oversea hills; and it carries in its folds the delight of summer clouds flying in the wind.
