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- Shika Wakashu
Mikakimori eji no taku hi no yoru wa moe hiru wa kietsutsu mono o koso omoe
Like the watch fires kindled by the guardsmen at the palace gates, blazing by night and dying out by day, so I burn with love by night and fade away by day, lost in longing.
Shika Wakashu - Onakatomi no Yoshinobu
Waga koi ya futami kawareru tamakushige ika ni suredomo au kata mo naki
Is my love a jeweled comb box whose lid and base have been switched, so that whatever I do, there is no way for them, or us, to meet?
Shika Wakashu - Unknown Poet
Kōri shite oto wa senedomo yamagawa no shita ni nagaruru mono to shirazu ya
Though it is frozen and makes no sound, do you not know that the mountain stream still flows beneath the ice? So too my love flows on unseen.
Kaze fukeba moshio no keburi katayori ni nabiku o hito no kokoro tomo gana
When the wind blows, the smoke of burning seaweed for salt bends all one way; if only your heart would bend toward me like that.
Shika Wakashu - Fujiwara no Chikataka
Se o hayami iwa ni sekaruru takigawa no waretemo sue ni awamu to zo omou
The rapids run so fast that the torrent, checked by a rock, splits in two, yet flows together again downstream; so too, though we part now, I am determined that we will meet again in the end.
Shika Wakashu - Retired Emperor Sutoku
Harima naru Shikama ni somuru anagachi ni hito o koishi to omou koro kana
Like the deep indigo cloth dyed at Shikama in Harima, whose name echoes "anagachi," so recklessly and wholly I have been longing for you in these days.
Shika Wakashu - Sone no Yoshitada
Hodo mo naku kururu to omoishi fuyu no hi no kokoromotonaki ori mo arikeri
The winter day, which I had thought would darken all too soon, has its times, I find, when I wait impatiently for it to end.
Shika Wakashu - Dōmyō
Koiwabite hitori fuseya ni yomosugara otsuru namida ya Otonashi no taki
Pining with love, alone in my humble hut all through the night, are these tears that keep falling the soundless Otonashi Falls?
Kimi o waga omou kokoro wa Ōhara ya itsushika to nomi sumiyakaretsutsu
My heart, longing for you, is like Ōhara where charcoal is burned: wishing only "soon, soon," it goes on smoldering without end.
Waga koi wa aisomete koso masarikere Shikama no kachi no iro naranedomo
My love has grown only deeper since we first began to meet, though it is not the indigo of Shikama, which darkens with every dyeing.
Yo o fukami kaerishi sora mo nakarishi o izuku yori oku tsuyu ni nurekemu
The night was so deep that on my way home I saw nothing of the sky, my mind elsewhere; where, then, could the dew have come from that has soaked my sleeves?
Shika Wakashu - Kiyohara no Motosuke
Kokoro o ba todomete koso wa kaeritsure ayashi ya nani no kure o matsuramu
I came home only after leaving my heart behind with you; how strange it is, then, that something in me still waits for evening.
Shika Wakashu - Fujiwara no Shunzei
Take no ha ni tama nuku tsuyu ni aranedomo mada yo o komete okinikeru kana
I am not the dew strung like jewels on bamboo leaves, yet I too rose while the night was still deep, and left you.
Shika Wakashu - Fujiwara no Sanekata
Minahito no oshimu hi naredo ware wa tada osoku kureyuku nageki o zo suru
Everyone else is sorry to see this day end, but I can only grieve at how slowly it darkens.
Shika Wakashu - Unknown Poet
Sumiyoshi no Asazawa ono no wasuremizu taedae narade au yoshi mo gana
Not like the hidden stream in the fields of Asazawa at Sumiyoshi, flowing only in fits and starts — if only there were some way for us to meet without such breaks.
Ware nomi ya omoi okosemu ajikinaku hito wa yukue mo shiranu mono yue
Am I the only one sending my thoughts toward you? How pointless, when you do not even know where I am.
Shika Wakashu - Izumi Shikibu