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Title: O-Shichi And Moto
Author: Cale Young Rice [
More Titles by Rice]
I
O-Shichi, all my heart today
Is dreaming of your fate;
And of your little house that stood
Beside the temple gate;
Of its plum-garden hid away
Behind white paper doors;
And of the young boy-priest who read too late with you love-lores.
II
O-Shichi dwelt in Yedo--where
A thousand wonders dwell.
Gods, golden palaces and shrines
That like a charm enspell.
O-Shichi dwelt among them there,
More wondrous, she, than all--
A flower some forgetful god had from his hand let fall.
III
And all her days were as the dream
On flowers in the sun.
And all her ways were as the waves
That by Shin-bashi run.
And in her gaze there was the gleam
Of stars that cannot wait
Too long for love and so fare forth from heaven to find a mate.
IV
O-Shichi dwelt so, till one night
When all the city slept,
When not a paper lantern swung,
When only fire-flies swept
Soft cipherings of spirit-light
Across the temple's gloom--
Sudden a cry was heard--the cry that should O-Shichi doom.
V
For following the cry came flame,
A Chaya's roof a-blaze.
And quickly was the street a stream
Of stricken folk, whose gaze
Knew well that when the morning came
Their homes would be but smoke
Vanished upon the winds: now had O-Shichi's fate awoke.
VI
And waited. For at morning priests
In pity of her years
And desolation led her back
Behind the great god's spheres;
The great god Buddha, who of beasts
And men all mindful was.
O Buddha, in thy very courts O-Shichi learned love's laws!
VII
Love of the body and the soul,
Not of Nirvana's state!
Love that beyond itself can see
No beauty wise or great.
O-Shichi for a moon--a whole
Moon happy there beheld
The young boy-priest whose yearning e'er into his eyes upwelled.
VIII
So all too soon for her was found
Elsewhere a kindly thatch.
And all too soon O-Shichi heard
Behind her close love's latch.
They led her from the temple's ground
Into untrysting days.
And all too soon that happy moon was hid in sorrow's haze.
IX
For now at dawn she rose to dress
With blooms some honored vase,
Or to embroider or brew tea's
Sweet ceremonial grace.
Or she at dusk, in sick distress,
Before the butsudan,
Must to ancestral tablets pray--not to her Moto-San!
X
Not unto him, her love, who sways
Her breast, as moon the tide,
Whose breath is incense--Ah, again
To see him softly glide
Before the grave god-idol's gaze
Of inward ecstasy,
To watch the great bell boom for him its mystic sutra-plea.
XI
But weeks grew into weariness,
And weariness to pain,
And pain to lonely wildness, which
Set fire unto her brain.
And, "I will see my love!" distress
Made fair O-Shichi cry,
"Tho for ten lives away from him I then must live and die."
XII
Yet--no! She dared not go to him,
To her he could not come.
Then, sudden a thought her being swept
And struck her loud heart dumb.
Till in her rose confusion dim,
Fear fighting with Desire--
Which to O-Shichi took the shape of Fudo, god of fire.
XIII
And Fudo won her: for that night
Did fond O-Shichi dare
To set aflame her father's house,
Hoping again to share
The temple with her acolyte,
Her lover-priest, who, spent
With speechless passion for her face, in vain strove to repent.
XIV
But ah! what destiny can do
Is not for folly's hand.
The flames O-Shichi kindled were
From sea to Shiba fanned.
And it was learned a love-sick girl
Had charred a thousand homes.
Then were the fury-smitten folk like to a sea that foams.
XV
And so they seized her: but not in
The temple--O not there
Had she been led again by priests
In pity--led to share
Her lover's eyes; no, but her sin
Brought not one dear delight
To poor O-Shichi--who was now to look on her last rite.
XVI
For to the stake they bound her--fire
They lit--to be her fate....
O-Shichi, have I dreamt it all?
Your face, the temple gate,
The fair boy-priest shut from desire
In Buddhahood to-be?
Then let me dream and ever dream, O flower by Yedo's sea.
[The end]
Cale Young Rice's poem: O-Shichi And Moto
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