I
What is life? A voice,
A thought, a light on the dark,---
Lo, crow in the sky
II
Sudden pain of earth
I hear in the fallen leaf
“Life’s autumn,” I cry.
III
The silence-leaves from Life,
Older than dream or pain,---
Are they my passing ghost?
IV
Is it not the cry of a rose to be saved?
Oh, how could I
When I, in fact, am the rose!
V
But the march to Life . . .
Break song to sing the new song!
Clouds leap, flowers bloom.
VI
Fallen leaves! Nay, sprits?
Shall I go downward with thee
By a stream of Fate?
VII
Speak not again, Voice!
The silence washes off sins:
Come not again, Light!
VIII
Is it too late to hear a nightingale?
Tut, tut, tut, . . . some bird sings,--
That’s quite enough, my friend.
IX
I shall cry to thee across the years?
Wilt thou turn thy face to respond
To my own tears with thy smile?
X
Where the flowers sleep,
Thank God! I shall sleep, to-night.
Oh, come, butterfly!
XI
My Love’s lengthened hair
Swings o’er me from Heaven’s gate:
Lo, Evening’s shadow!
XII
Is there anything new under the sun?
Certainly there is.
See how a bird flies, how flowers smile!
Noguchi, Yone. Selected Poems of Yone Noguchi, Selected by Himself（Boston: The Four Seas Company;
London: Elkin Mathews, 1921)