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- Kinyo Wakashu
Kaku bakari koi no yamai wa omokeredo me ni kakesakete awanu kimi kana
Heavy as this sickness of love has grown, you seem to weigh it on a scale and turn away, never coming to meet me.
Kinyo Wakashu - Hanazono no Sadaijin-ke no Kodaishin
Waga koi wa shizu no shikeito sujiyowami taema wa ōku kuru wa sukunashi
My love is like the coarse thread spun by humble folk: its strands so weak that the breaks are many, and you come as rarely as the thread is wound.
Asamashi ya ko wa nanigoto no sama zo to yo koi seyo tote mo umarezarikeri
How shocking! What in the world has become of me? I was never born to be told to fall in love.
Kinyo Wakashu - Minamoto no Toshiyori
Kamigaki ni mukashi waga mishi ume no hana tomo ni oiki to narinikeru kana
The plum blossoms I once saw within the shrine's fence have, along with me, become an old and weathered tree.
Kinyo Wakashu - Minamoto no Tsunenobu
Yamazato mo ukiyo no naka o hanareneba tani no uguisu ne o nomi zo naku
Even a mountain village is not apart from this sorrowful world, and so the warbler in the valley does nothing but cry its voice aloud.
Kinyo Wakashu - Fujiwara no Tadamichi
Ueokishi kimi mo naki yo ni toshi hetaru hana wa waga mi no kokochi koso sure
In a world where the one who planted it is gone, the flowering tree that has lived on through the years feels to me like my own self.
Yukusue no tameshi to kyō o omou tomo ima ikutose ka hito ni kataramu
Though I think of today as an example for the years to come, how many more years will I have to tell others of it?
Kinyo Wakashu - Yoen
Ikuchiyo mo kimi zo kataramu tsumoriite omoshirokarishi hana no miyuki o
For thousands of ages it is you who will tell of it: the splendid royal outing to see the blossoms, where the petals lay piled in drifts.
Morotomo ni aware to omoe yamazakura hana yori hoka ni shiru hito mo nashi
Feel for me, mountain cherry, as I feel for you, for here, apart from your blossoms, there is no one who knows my heart.
Kinyo Wakashu - Gyōson
Ikutose ni ware narinuramu morobito no hana miru haru o yoso ni kikitsutsu
How many years have I spent like this, only hearing from afar of the springs when everyone goes out to view the flowers?
Minahito wa Yoshino no yama no sakurabana ori shiranu mi ya tani no umoregi
Everyone else is like the cherry blossoms of Mount Yoshino; am I, who know nothing of my season, only a buried log at the bottom of the valley?
Kozo mishi ni iro mo kawarazu sakinikeri hana koso mono wa omowazarikere
Unchanged in color from when I saw them last year, the blossoms have opened; it is the flowers alone that know no sorrow.
Toshi furedo haru ni shirarenu umoregi wa hana no miyako ni sumu kai zo naki
Though the years pass, I am like a buried log that spring never notices, and there is no use in my living in this capital of flowers.
Kinyo Wakashu - Fujiwara no Akinaka
Yamabuki mo onaji kazashi no hana naredo kumoi no sakura nao zo koishiki
The yellow kerria too is a flower worn in the headdress, yet still I long for the cherry blossoms of the palace above the clouds.
Chihayaburu Kashii no miya no sugi no ha o futatabi kazasu waga kimi zo kimi
You who twice wear in your headdress the sacred cedar leaves of the shrine at Kashii, my lord, you are a lord indeed.
Toshi o hete kayou yamaji wa kawaranedo kyō wa sakayuku kokochi koso sure
The mountain path I have walked for so many years has not changed, yet today I feel as though I am climbing the slope toward good fortune.
Kinyo Wakashu - Ryōzen