WIFE.
So let it be.
CHORUS.
“Shall I from one who has cast life aside,
Dear life itself, withold these trivial trees?”
(TSUNEYO goes and stands by the dwarf trees.)
Then he brushed the snow from off them, and when he looked,
“I cannot, cannot,” he cried, “O beautiful trees,
Must I begin?
You, plum-tree, among bare boughs blossoming
Hard by the window, still on northward face
Snow-sealed, yet first to scent
Cold air with flowers, earliest of Spring;
‘You first shall fall.’
You by whose boughs on mountain hedge entwined
Dull country folk have paused and caught their breath,[82]
Hewn down for firewood. Little had I thought
My hand so pitiless!”
(He cuts down the plum-tree.)
“You, cherry (for each Spring your blossom comes
Behind the rest), I thought a lonely tree
And reared you tenderly, but now
I, I am lonely left, and you, cut down,
Shall flower but with flame.”
TSUNEYO.
You now, O pine, whose branches I had thought
One day when you were old to lop and trim,
Standing you in the field, a football-post,[83]
Such use shall never know.
Tree, whom the winds have ever wreathed
With quaking mists, now shimmering in the flame
Shall burn and burn.
Now like a beacon, sentinels at night
Kindle by palace gate to guard a king,
Your fire burns brightly.
Come, warm yourself.