Page:Japanese plays and playfellows (1901).djvu/269

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PLAYING WITH FIRE
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day, and shall never forget the happy times we spent together in Rose and Kyōto. However long I write, there is no end to it, so I shall look for a further occasion to tell you my love. In respectful obedience,

"O Maru."

The letter contained an enclosure, which it required the intervention of a Japanese friend to interpret. Whether the girl had herself written the six poems which follow, or, as it seems to me more probable, had adapted them with slight alterations from a popular song-book, I cannot say. They form both epilogue and moral to this typical tale.

1.

"Could I but meet you!
Could I but see you!
Waves roll between us;
Wishing is vain.


2.

"Thinking about you,
Watching your likeness;
Yet the watched likeness
Says not a word.


3.

"You, my French master,
Living in Paris,
I am Awazu's
Single lone pine.


4.

'In mine ears waking,
In mine ears dreaming,
Ever one sound is,
That of thy voice.