we are helpless before time
which ever speeds away,
and pains of a hundred kinds
pursue us one after another.
Maidens joy in girlish pleasures,
with ship-borne gems on their wrist,
and hand in hand with their friends;
but the bloom of maidenhood,
at it cannot be stopped,
too swiftly steals away.
When do their ample tresses
black as a mud-snail's bowels
turn white with the frost of age ?
Whence come those wrinkles
which furrow their rosy cheeks ?
The lusty young men, warrior-like,
bearing their sword blades at their waists,
in their hand the hunting bows,
and mounting their bay horses,
with saddles dressed with twill,
ride about in triumph;
but can their prime of youth
favor them forever ?
Few are the nights they keep,
when, sliding back the plank doors,
they reach their beloved ones
and sleep, arms intertwined,
before, with staffs at their waists,
they totter along the road,
laughed at here, and hated there.
This is the way of the world;
and, cling as I may to life,
I know no help !
_______
Although I wish I were thus,
like the rocks that stay forever,
in this world of humanity
I cannot keep old age away
Yamanoue Okura ( 660-733 )
