Sonnet of the Sweet Complaint
Never let me lose the marvel
of your statue-like eyes, or the accent
the solitary rose of your breath
places on my cheek at night.
I am afraid of being, on this shore,
a branchless trunk, and what I most regret
is having no flower, pulp, or clay
for the worm of my despair.
If you are my hidden treasure,
if you are my cross, my dampened pain,
if I am a dog, and you alone my master,
never let me lose what I have gained,and adorn the branches of your river
with leaves of my estranged Autumn.
"Snow Wine"
Again, from the goblet, your presence
sparkling fills my heart with care--
you with your smiling innocence
and your serpentine waves of hair.
Swept off my feet in the dark stream
I again live through
a passionate forgotten dream
of kisses, of snowstorms masking you.
Your laugh your magical laughter
and in the golden goblet sway,
and lightly over your sable hair
the current of the blue wind play.
And how, looking into the liquor,
could I miss my Bacchic wreath?
and fail to remember your kisses
my face upturned to meet mouth your mouth?
29 December 1906
Two Satyrs fight for the wineskin 1897
Translated literally, the Japanese word shunga means picture of spring; "spring" is a common euphemism for sex.
