Chapter 4 Four

"Oh, no, my friend, your words are too vague for me to understand." "A heart should be given with a drop of tears and a poem, I love you." "Oh, no, my friend, your words are too vague for me to understand." "Music is as fragile as dewdrops. It dies in laughter. Sorrow is strong and enduring. Let sorrowful love wake up in your eyes." "Oh, no, my friend, your words are too vague for me to understand." "The lotus blooms in the middle of the day, and loses all that it has. In the winter fog of eternal life, it will no longer bud."

"Oh, no, my friend, your words are too vague for me to understand." I have exposed the whole of my life to your eyes, without any secrets or reservations. Therefore you do not know me. If it were a gem, I could break it into a thousand pieces and wear it into a necklace to hang around your neck. If it were a flower, round, small and fragrant, I could pick it from a branch and hide it in your hair. But it is a heart, my love. Where are its sides and bottom? You know not the ends of the kingdom, but you are still the queen of the kingdom. If it is a moment of joy, it will bloom in laughter, and you will see and understand at once.

If it were a pang of pain, it would melt into crystal tears, wordlessly reflecting its deepest secrets. But it is love, my love. Its joys and pains are boundless, its wants and riches are boundless. It is as close to you as your life, but you can never fully understand it. The night is dark, the stars disappear in the clouds, and the wind sighs in the leaves. I will loose my hair, and my blue cloak will wrap me as tight as the night. I'll hold my head close to my breast: whisper in your heart in sweet loneliness. I'll close my eyes and listen. I won't look into your face. When your words are finished, we shall sit in silence. Only the trees whisper in the dark.

The night will be white. The sky will be dawn. We will look into each other's eyes, and then we will go our separate ways. Speak to me, I love! Tell me in words what you sing. I have always pictured you with loving longing. You are mine alone, mine alone, the inhabitant of my endless dreams! Thy feet are crimson with the heat of my longing, collector of my sunset songs! The wine of my pain sweetens your lips. You are mine alone, mine alone, the inhabitant of my solitary dream! I have darkened your eyes with thick shadows of passion; ghosts in the depths of my gaze! I caught you, entangled you, my love, in the snare of my music.

You are mine alone, mine alone, my eternal dream-dweller! They are the cradle of dawn, they are the kingdom of the stars. My poems disappear in their depths. Just let me fly high in the sky, soaring in the silent infinite space. Only let me break through its clouds and spread my wings in its sunshine.