Lit.: "Shadow and shape also, if-melt-away, original-water is,—that-understands Snow-Daruma." Daruma (Dharma), the twenty-eighth patriarch of the Zen sect, is said to have lost his legs through remaining long in the posture of meditation; and many legless toy-figures, which are so balanced that they will always assume an upright position however often placed upside-down, are called by his name. The snow-men made by Japanese children have the same traditional form.—The Japanese friend who helped me to translate these verses, tells me that a ghostly meaning attaches to the word "Kagé" [shadow] in the above;—this would give a much more profound signification to the whole verse.
As the moon of the fifteenth night, the heart till the age fifteen:
Then the brightness wanes, and the darkness comes with love.[15]
[15] According to the old calendar, there was always a full moon on the fifteenth of the month. The Buddhist allusion in the verse is to mayoi, the illusion of passion, which is compared to a darkness concealing the Right Way.
All things change, we are told, in this world of change and sorrow;
But love's way never changes of promising never to change.[16]
Kawaru uki-yo ni
Kawaranu mono wa
Kawarumai to no
Koi no michi.
Lit.: "Change changeable-world-in, does-not-change that-which, 'We-will-never-change'-saying of Love-of Way."
Cruel the beautiful flash,—utterly heartless that lightning!
Before one can look even twice it vanishes wholly away![17]
Honni tsurénai
Ano inadzuma wa
Futa mé minu uchi
Kiyété yuku.