II. Love Poems in Summer

Singalese Love Songs

I

Your eyes are beautiful beggars,
Careless singing minstrels,
Who will not starve
Nor sleep cold under the sky
If they receive no largess
Of mine.

Once lived a woman
Of great charity--

At last
Her own children
Begged for bread.

II

I would make you love me
That you might possess
Desire--

For to your heart
Beauty is a burned-out torch,
And Faith, a blind pigeon,