Japanese Prints

is half repulsed.
Shafts of broken sunlight dissolving
Convolutions of torpid cloud.

_A Picnic Under the Cherry Trees_

The boat drifts to rest
Under the outward spraying branches.

There is faint sound of quavering strings,
The reedy murmurs of a flute,
The soft sigh of the wind through silken garments;

All these are mingled
With the breeze that drifts away,
Filled with thin petals of cherry blossom,
Like tinkling laughter dancing away in sunlight.

_Court Lady Standing Under Cherry Tree_

She is an iris,
Dark purple, pale rose,
Under the gnarled boughs
That shatter their stars of bloom.
She waves delicately
With the movement of the tree.

Of what is she dreaming?

Of long nights lit with orange lanterns,
Of wine cups and compliments and kisses of the two-sword men. And of dawn when weary sleepers
Lie outstretched on the mats of the palace,
And of the iris stalk that is broken in the fountain.