The Seasons of Time
Tsurayuki ended his preface to the Kokinshu with these words:
Hitomaro is gone. His poetry remains. Time may pass, and seasons
change; pleasure and pain may come and go. These poems, written,
stand! As the long thread-like leaves of the willow, forever
renewed; as the needles of the pine, eternally green; as the
tendrils of creeers that cover the fields in the endless profusion;
as bird-tracks that multiply in the sand by the sea-shares of time:
even so Poetry shall forever last. And men who know its form and
feature, and who understand its heart, will worship the poetry of
old even as we do the moon in the wide heaven; but will not fail to
love as well the poetry of today.
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Each season, more lovely,
Eight thousand kinds of brushes,
Trees and flowers blossom,
And the voices of the singing birds even change.
Each time we hear it with our ears
And see it with our eyes,
And still sighing within, we bend down,
Heartshaken, longing and yearning while living on.
In the dark shade of the trees,
When the fourth moon stands up,
Hidden in the night,
The crying cuckoo should be real young of the nightingale,
As in handed down since olden times.
The young girls will thread the sweetflag
And the orange into chaplets.
Radiant during the whole radiant day,
That cuckoo flies over the many tops of the hills,
Till he faces the moon of early morning,
Going and turning,
He sings resounding.
Should I ever get enough of it?
- Yakamochi
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Spring (Haru)
If it were not for the voice
Of the nightingale,
How would the mountain village
Where the snow is still unmelted
Know the spring?
- Lady Nakatsukasa
With the spreading mists
The treebuds swell in early spring
And wet snow petals fall-
So even my flowerless country village
Already lies beneath its fallen flowers.
- Tsurayuki
Above the water
Gliding softly down the rocks,
The buds of bracken
Burgeoning in tender green-
Spring has come already!
- Prince Shiki
With voice unceasing
Sing, O nightingale!
In one year
Even as much as twice
Can spring come?
- Fujiwara No Okikaze
Do those girls set out
On some exursion for young shoots,
That thet go gaily beckon,
Waving their white linen sleeves
Towards the green fields of ancient Kasuga?
- Tsurayuki
The wild geese returning
Through the misty sky-
A letter written
In faint ink!
- Tsumori Kunimoto
Now it is spring-
And across the moors the haze
Stretches heavily-
And within these rays at sunset,
A warbler fills the radiant mist with song.
- Yakamochi
When I went out
In the spring meadows
To gather violets,
I enjoyed myself
So much that I stayed all night.
- Akahito
Clear is the bottom of the lake,
That mirrors the wistaria bloom;
And there in those sunken pebbles
I see countless gems.
- Yakamochi
In the fields of spring,
The nightengales sing.
To gain their friendship,
The plum blossoms have burst open
In the garden of my house.
- Anon
The spring rain
Which hangs to the branches
Of the green willow
Looks like pearls
Threaded on a string.
- Lady Ise
The rotten-wooded willow
At the road side
When spring comes,
Yearns bitterly for old times.
- Suguwara No Michizane
Can it be that there is no moon
And that spring is not
The spring of old,
While I alone remain
The same person?
- Narihira
In the ternal
Light of the spring day
The flowers fall away
Like the unquiet heart.
- Ki no Tomonori
In one petal of this flower,
I have concealed
Hundreds of words.
No not think foolishly of them!
- Hirotsugi
Within one petal of this flower,
Hundreds ofwords
Can surely not be held.
Would it not be broken off?
- Answer by the young woman to whom the poet sent the flower.
The cherry blossoms
Of the tenantless house
On the reed plain
Must with an easy heart
Fall in the wind.
- Yekei Hoshi
The bridge of dreams
Floating on the brief spring night
Soon breaks off:
Now from the mountainstop a cloud
Takes leave into the open sky.
- Teika
As now I come
And see the spring day grow to dusk
In the mountain hamlet,
The cherry blossoms fall to earth
At the sounding of a temple's vesper bell.
- Noin
Mirrored in the waters of the Kamunabi River,
Where the song-frogs call,
Do they bloom now-those flowers of the yellow rose?
- Prince Atsumi
The flowers to the tree's root,
The birds to their old nest
Have returned;
But whither spring has gone
No man knows.
- Emperor Sutoku
The plum blossoms have opened,
But what is still in bud,
Is my hidden longing.
Does it wait for the snow?
- Anon
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Summer (Natsu)
In the leafy treetops
Of the summer mountain
The cuckoo calls-
Oh, how far off his echoing voice!
- Yakamochi
On summer nights
When I wonder "Shall I go to bed?"
At the single note sung
By the cuckoo,
Down suddenly breaks!
- Tsurayuki
The men of valor
Have gone to the honorable hunt:
The ladies
Are trailing their red pettiecoats
Over the clean sea-beach.
- Akahito
As I row over the plain
Of the sea and gaze
Into the distance, the waves
Merge with the bright sky.
- Fujiwara no Tadamichi
Come, companions!
Quick to Yamato!
The pine on the beach of Mitu
Will wait impatiently for us.
- Okura
Standing or sitting,
I know not what to do.
Though I tread the earth,
My heart is in the skies.
- Anon
Would my house were on the cliff
Of Suminoye!
I should be happy always watching
The white waves drawing near
To the shore of the open sea.
- Anon
Gossip grows kuje weeds
In a summer meadow.
My girl and I
Sleep arm in arm.
- Hitomaro
If only the world
Would always remain this way,
Some fishermen
Drawing a little rowboat
Up the river bank.
- Minamoto no Sanetomo
Like mu cupped hands
Spilling drops back into the mountain pool
And clouding its pure waters
Before the satisfaction of my thirst,
So have I had to part from you too soon.
- Tsurayuki
We have seen the sun
Make colored banners of the clouds
As it set in the sea-
If only now that darkness falls
The radiant moon will fill the night.
- Emperor Tenchi
On the sea of heaven the waves of the cloud arise,
And the moon's ship is seen sailing
To hide in a forest of stars.
- Hitomaro
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Autumn (Aki)
A passing shower
Has fallen on the garden grass;
And I hear the voice
Of the crickets singing-
Autumn is here.
- Anon
Turned towards the moon
In the dark night,
The cuckoo's crying voice
Sounds remote and faint.
Is it because my village is so far away?
- Yakamochi
Here where the wild ducks
Sport in the pond,
The leaves fall from the trees
And float- but no floating heart
Have I who love you true.
- Taniha Ome
Even for the space of a flash
Of lightning
That flashes over the corn ears
Of an autumn field, -
Can I forget you?
- Anon
After the storm
On Mount Mimuro,
The colored leaves
Float like brocade
On the River Tatsuta.
- Noin
Because the mist
Has risen from the river to conceal
The lower slopes,
The sutumn-colored peaks appear
Suspended floating in the sky.
- Kiyowara Fukayabu
I shall miss you most
When twillight brings the rising mists
To hand upon the reeds
And as the evening darkens cold
With mallards' cries across the marsh.
- Anon
Although both grasses and trees
Change color,
For the wave-flowers
Of the great sea
There is no autumn.
- Funya no Yasuhide
When I count
The waves illuminated by the moon which shines
On the face of the water,
Tonight indeed must be the very middle of autumn!
- Minamoto no Shitago
Out in the marsh reeds
A bird cries out in sorrow,
As though it has recalled
Something better forgotten.
- Tsurayuki
Startled
By a single scream
Of the crane which is reposing
On the surface of the swamp,
All the birds are crying.
- Saigyo Hoshi
Will it go crying
To Yamato?
The Yobuko bird.
Ah, calling it crosses over
The Naka hills of Kisa!
- Furubito
As evening falls,
From along the moors the autumn wind
Blows chill into the heart,
And the quails raise their plaintive cry
In the deep grass of secluded Fukakusa.
- Shunzei
In the mountain village
The wind rushes the leaves.
Deep in the night, the deer
Cry out beyond the edge of dreams.
- Minamoto no Morotada
The deer which lives
On the evergreen mountain
Where there are not autumn leaves
Can know the coming of a autumn
Only by its own cry.
- Onakatomi Yoshinobu
In the evening calm the cranes search for prey,
But when the tide comes in,
The waves of the open sea rise so high
That each calls its own mate.
- Anon
In the empty mountains
The leases of the bamboo grass
Rustle in the wind.
I think of a girl
Who is not here.
- Hitomaro
In my loneliness
I step outside my hut and gaze
In quiet reverie,
But everywhere it is the same:
The melancholy autumn dusk.
- Ryozen
Upon the mountain edge
Noisy as a flock of teal
Though we are walking,
I am lonely, ah!
Because you are not here.
- Emperor Okamoto
In the evening
The rice leaves in the garden
Rustle in the autumn wind
That blows through my reed hut.
Minamoto no Tsunenobu
In a gust of wind the white dew
On the autumn grass
Scatters like a broken necklace.
- Funya no Asayasu
There is a fading time
For blossoming flowers.
But the worthless roots
Of the reeds of the mountains,
Exist a long time!
- Anon
How will you manage
To cross alone
The autumn mountain
Which was so hard to get across
Even when we went the two of us together?
- Princess Daihaku
While I stay alone,
Feeling weary and forlorn,
Longing after you,
The autumn breeze comes blowing,
And the moon sinks to the west.
- Anon
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Winter (Fuyu)
The white chrysanthemum
Is disguised by the first frost.
If I wanted to pick one
I could find it only by chance.
_ Mitsune
Magnificent snow
Has fallen here at my place.
But at your tumble old village of Ohara,
If ever, later it will fall.
- Emperor Temmu
It was I who did command
The Dragon Gods of these hills
To send down the snow,
Whereof a few fragments, perchance
Were sprinkled over your home.
- Answer by the Lady Fujiwara
Like a wave crest
Escaped and frozen,
One white egret
Guards the harbor mouth.
- Emperor Uda
Yonder in the plum tree,
Fluttering from branch to branch,
The warbler sings;
And white on his wings falls
Airy snow.
- Anon
This evening so cold and chill
That the mallards' wings are white with frost
As they skim the reedy shore,
How I think of Yamato!
- Prince Shiki
When the frost lies white
Upon fields where travelers
Must find their shelter,
O flock of heavenly cranes,
Cover my child with your wings!
- Anon
I have always known
That at last I would
Take this road, but yesterday
I did not know it would be today.
- Narihira
How sad this road
Covered over with the obscuring snow,
Where not a person passes,
Where not a trace remains to mark the course
Of travel through a world of fading hopes.
- Mitsune
To be old-
Now amid the swirling snow
I understand:
No one comes to visit me;
There is no place to go.
- Teika
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This World (Yo No Naka)
To what shall I compare
This world?
To the white wake behind
A ship that rowed away
At dawn!
- Mansei
As for this world,
That way or this way-
It is the same thing;
For both palace and cottage
Come to nothing in the end.
- Semimaru
My existence in the world has been
As the reflection of the moon
Which lodges in water
Gathered in the palm of the hand,
About which one doubts whether it is there or not!
- Tsurayuki
A thing which fades
With no outward sign-
Is the flower
Of the heart of man
In this world!
- Ono no Komachi
Since I am convinced
That reality is in no way
Real,
How am I to admit
That dreams are dreams?
- Saigyo Hoshi
One of us may feel
That life holds only pain, and another
That our lot is shameful,
Yet since we are not birds, but men,
We cannot find escape in flight.
- Okura
O pine tree standing
At the side of the stone house,
When I look at you,
It is like seeing face to face
The men of old time.
- Hakutsu
In my delight to see
The moon come up between the trees,
I wish only that
I might live west of those western hills
And watch its rising sooner still.
- By a court lady whose name we do not know.
How I yearn to be
Unalterably what once I was,
Immovable as a rock,
But because I belong to this world,
There is no stop to time.
- Okura
