Celebrated Korean poems (23)

The silence of the beloved

Manhae Han Yong-un (1879 ­-1944)

My Beloved has gone away. Ah, that Beloved whom I so love has gone away,

crushing the hillside’s green, walking along a narrow path leading to a maple grove, quite abandoning me.

Old pledges, like golden blooms, all turned into icy dust and blew away on a breath of wind.

Memories of a first, piercing kiss overturned the course of my fate, then withdrew and vanished.

I grew deaf at my Beloved’s fragrant voice, grew blind at the sight of that flowerlike face.

Recalling that love is only human, when first we met I was somehow doubtful, afraid of partings,

but now unexpectedly separation has come and my startled heart is bursting with new sorrows.

But because I know that to turn separation into a source of pointless tears is to shatter love, I have transformed the power of uncontrollable sorrow and poured it over the head of new hope.

Just as I worried about partings when first we met, now as you leave I firmly believe we will meet once again.

Ah! My beloved has gone away, but it was not at all at my bidding.

The song of a love that can never overpower my melody circles round my Beloved’s silence.