Why should the lonely sleeper heed
The midnight bell, the bird of dawn?
But ah! they're sorrowful indeed
When loosen'd was the damask zone.
Her image still, with locks that sleep
Had tangled, haunts me, and for aye;
Like willow-sprays where winds do sweep,
All tangled too, my feelings lie.
As the world goes, it rarely happens even with the most ardent secret love; but in my case I never see her but what I care for her more and more:—
'Twas in the spring-time that we first did meet,
Nor e'er can I forget my flow'ret sweet.
Ah well! ah well! I keep talking like one in a dream, and meantime Taraukuwazhiya is sure to be impatiently awaiting me. I must get home. How will he have been keeping my place for me? I feel a bit uneasy. [He arrives at his house.] Halloo! halloo! Taraukuwazhiya! I'm back! I'm back! [He enters the room.] I'm just back. Poor fellow! the time must have seemed long to you. There now! [Seating himself.] Well, I should like to tell you to take off the "abstraction blanket"; but you would probably feel ashamed at being exposed.[175] Anyhow I will relate to you what Hana said last night if you care to listen. Do you? [The figure nods acquiescence.] So you would like to? Well, then, I'll tell you all about it: I made all the haste I could, but yet it was nearly dark before I arrived; and I was just going to ask admittance, my thoughts full of how anxiously Hana must be waiting for me in her loneliness, saying, perhaps, with the Chinese poet[176]:—
He promised but he comes not, and I lie on my pillow in the fifth watch of the night:—
The wind shakes the pine trees and the bamboos; can it be my beloved?
when there comes borne to me the sound of her voice, humming as she sat alone:—
"The breezes through the pine trees moan,
The dying torch burns low;
Ah me! 'tis eerie all alone!
Say, will he come or no?"
So I gave a gentle rap on the back door, on hearing which she cried out: "Who's there? who's there?" Well, a shower was falling at the time. So I answered by singing:—