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.

      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.

      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.

      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.

      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.

      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!

      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.

      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.

      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!

      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.

      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."

      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.

      And Fudo won her: