From enemy fire you did not flinch
And, when the river burst its bound
And waters, rising inch by inch,
Threatened your roots, you stood your ground.
Earth tremors that convulsed the hill
Left you unshaken, just the same.
What evil force or wicked will
‘Has shattered now your sturdy frame?
The poplar, mustering what force
It still retained, made this reply:
«Within my breast a worm I bore,
Which has consumed me to the core.
And now—now like a man I die!»
* * *
Once a bard of ancient glory
Wrote and handed down a song,
Saying horsemen are like aurochs,
Just as proud and wild and strong.
Ever since that day our hunters,
Skilful mountaineers each one,
Every time they are confronted
By an auroch, drop their gun.
Another bard, my predecessor,
Once compared his lady love
To a bird with rainbow feathers,
Circling high in heaven above.
Thus he sang with zeal untiring
In his loving lady’s praise.
All who heard the song no firearm
At a rainbow-bird dared raise.
Why has sacred mountain custom
Fallen in disuse of late?
Why are words by poets spoken
Powerless to alter fate?
Now to what should man be likened
So that evil pass him by,
So that death itself be spited
And the innocent not die?
On the skyline clouds are lowering,
But it seems a poet’s call
Shall save neither bird nor aurochs,
Not one soul among us all.
* * *
Three times I fell, on each occasion snapping
A bone. Foul weather was the cause, of course,
And then a bumpy road that caught me napping,
And, finally, too mettlesome a horse.
First, there was rain and hail; then roads were icy
Or washed away by floods; the next time, you—
God only knows just what it was precisely—
You never came. I waited, and still do!
To wait in vain would seem my lifelong mission.
And now, when I am old and growing numb,
The weather’s fine, the road’s in good condition,
The horse is docile—but you still don’t come!