The Silence of My Beloved

The Silence of My Beloved

Han Yong-Un*

My beloved has gone. Ah! The one I love is gone.

He broke the green of summer and walked the narrow way 'cross the autumn wood, and none could stay him.

The old promise, strong and shining as a flower of gold, collapsed to dust blowing in a gentle sigh.

The memory of that first sharp kiss turned the compass of my destiny and backed away, step by fading step.

The scented voice of my love has deafened me; the flower of his beauty blinds me.

Love being a mortal affair, great was the fear of his leaving even as we met. Yet parting stupefies the soul, and my astonished heart bursts anew at this sorrow.

But I know I break my own love if I make of this ending a source of empty tears, and so I took the overbearing force of my grief and poured it out into a wellspring of new hope.

Even as we fear parting in the moment of our union, so do we believe in the union made anew at the moment of our parting.

Ah! My beloved has gone, but I have refused to lose him.

My love song overflows its melody to swirl forevermore around the silence of my beloved.

* Han Yong-Un (1879-1944). Korean Buddhist monk, author, poet, and activist for Korean independence from Japanese rule. One of the thirty-three signers of the Korean Declaration of Independence. Died in 1944, one year before Korean liberation.The Silence of My Beloved was published in 1926, sixteen years into the Japanese imperial rule of Korea.