Oh! I am lonely. I am lonely!
PRIEST.
How strange! Inside that grass-hut I see a young soldier dressed in helmet and breastplate. What can he be doing there?
ATSUMORI.
Oh foolish men, was it not to meet me that you came to this place? I am—oh! I am ashamed to say it,—I am the ghost of what once was ... Atsumori.
BOY.
Atsumori? My father ...
CHORUS.
And lightly he ran,
Plucked at the warrior’s sleeve,
And though his tears might seem like the long woe
Of nightingales that weep,
Yet were they tears of meeting-joy,
Of happiness too great for human heart.
So think we, yet oh that we might change
This fragile dream of joy
Into the lasting love of waking life!
ATSUMORI.