I suffered from that sylvan smile
She wore that day upon the stile
Within that forest’s golden glade
Where we had sat to share the shade
That day of love’s first tender kiss
When I was blessed and burnt by bliss
I suffered, in her sweet caress
From shape so stunning in that dress!
For in my deepest heartache’s core
Her face I knew I’d see no more
Within this vale of broken dreams
Where soul-destroying, savage streams
They wash away with heartless flood
The lass whose love was in my blood
Just like the Buddha taught in youth:
‘To suffer is a noble truth!’
And here below these hallowed stones
Lies buried deep a dead man’s bones
My father’s – if you’d care to know
For him I tend the flowers that grow
I cultivate each tender bloom
To grace his long-neglected tomb
For when I lost him as a child
Some say it sent me weird and wild
That I would never come to weep
Above the earth where he did sleep
Instead, I’d while away the time
Composing love’s romantic rhyme
For girl I yearned for in my youth
That traitor, cruel in claw and tooth
While dad, forgotten underground
In sorrow slept without a sound