Love and misery in various shapes
Pass through my mind and never rest.
She wished to answer, but was ashamed to explain herself, so only wrote:
Let it be as you will, come or not, yet to part without bitter feeling would lighten my sorrow.
From that time he seldom sent letters. One moon-bright night she was lying with grieving thoughts. She envied the moon in its serene course and could not refrain from writing to the Prince:
In her deserted house
She gazes at the moon—
He is not coming
And she cannot reveal her heart—
There is none who will listen.
She sent her page to give the poem to Ukon-no-Zo. Just then the Prince was talking with others before the King. When he retired from the presence, Ukon-no-Zo offered the letter. "Prepare the palanquin," he said, and he came to her. The lady was sitting near the veranda looking at the sky, and feeling that some one was coming had had the sudaré rolled down. He was not in his court robe, but in his soft, everyday wear, which was more pleasing to her eye. He silently placed his poem before her on the end of his fan, saying, "As your messenger returned too soon without awaiting my answer—" She drew it towards her with her own.
The Prince seemed to think of coming in, but went out into the garden, singing, "My beloved is like a dew-drop on a leaf." At last he came nearer, and said: "I must go to-night. I came secretly, but on such a bright night as this none can escape being seen. To-morrow I must remain within for religious duties, and people will be suspicious if I am not at home." He seemed about to depart, when she—"Oh, that a shower might come! So another brightness, more sweet than the heavenly one, might linger here for a while!" He felt that she was more amiable than others had admitted. "Ah, dear one," he said, and came up for a while, then went away, saying:
Unwillingly urged by the moon on her cloudy track
His body is going out, but not his heart
When he was gone she had the sudaré rolled up and read his poem in the moonlight.
She is looking at the moon,
But her thoughts are all of me
Hearing this
It draws me to her side.