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- Gosen Wakashu
Iwade omou kokoro ariso no hamakaze ni tatsu shiranami no yoru zo wabishiki
I have a heart that loves you without a word—and as white waves rise in the shore wind and draw near the rocky coast, so the coming of night is hard to bear.
Gosen Wakashu - Unknown Poet
Hitori nomi koureba kurushi yobukodori koe ni nakiidete kimi ni kikasen
To love alone like this is painful. Like the calling bird, I will cry out aloud and let you hear me.
Gosen Wakashu - Unknown Poet
Fushi nakute kimi ga taenishi shiraito wa yoritsukigataki mono ni zo arikeru
Like a smooth white thread snapping without a knot, you broke off from me for no reason at all—and I find it hard to twist it together, hard to draw near you again.
Gosen Wakashu - Unknown Poet
Kusamakura kono tabi hetsuru toshitsuki no uki wa kaerite ureshikaranan
The sorrow of the months and years that passed while you were on this journey—now that you have returned, let it turn instead to joy.
Gosen Wakashu - Unknown Poet
Ideshi yori miezu narinishi tsukikage wa mata yama no ha ni iri ya shiniken
The moonlight that has vanished from sight since it left me—has it gone back once more behind the rim of the mountains?
Gosen Wakashu - Unknown Poet
Ashihiki no yama ni ou chō morokazura morotomo ni koso iramahoshikere
Like the morokazura vine said to grow upon the mountain, it is together with you, side by side, that I would wish to go into the mountains.
Gosen Wakashu - Unknown Poet
Hamachidori tanomu o shire to fumisomuru ato uchikesu na ware o kosu nami
Like the first prints of a plover on the shore, I begin this letter so that you may know I am counting on you—do not wash those tracks away, you waves that sweep over me.
Gosen Wakashu - Taira no Sadafun
Yuku mizu no segoto ni fuman ato yue ni tanomu shirushi o izure to ka min
Your tracks are left at every shallow of the flowing stream—so which of them should I take as the sign that you are truly counting on me?
Gosen Wakashu - Ōtsubune
Tsuma ni ouru kotonashigusa o miru kara ni tanomu kokoro zo kazu masarikeru
Seeing your wordless reply, like the "wordless grass" that grows by the eaves, my heart that hopes to make you my wife only grows the stronger.
Gosen Wakashu - Minamoto no Moroakira
Oku tsuyu no kakaru mono to wa omoedomo karesenu mono wa nadeshiko no hana
I know that, like the dew that settles and clings, all is fleeting—yet what never withers, what never turns away, is the nadeshiko flower.
Gosen Wakashu - Minamoto no Moroakira
Karezu tomo ikaga tanomamu nadeshiko no hana wa tokiwa no iro ni shi araneba
Even if it never withers, how could I rely on it? The nadeshiko's blossoms are not of an evergreen, changeless hue.
Gosen Wakashu - Minamoto no Moroakira
Na ni shi owaba ausakayama no sanekazura hito ni shirarede kuru yoshi mo gana
If the sanekazura vine of Ōsaka, the Hill of Meeting, truly bears a name of meeting and lying together, then I wish there were some way, as one draws in a trailing vine, to come to you unseen by anyone.
Gosen Wakashu - Fujiwara no Sadakata
Koishi to wa sara ni mo iwaji shitahimo no tokemu o hito wa sore to shiranamu
I will say no more that I long for you. Should the cord beneath my robe come loose of itself, I hope you will know that it is the sign of my love.
Gosen Wakashu - Ariwara no Motokata
Shitahimo no shirushi to suru mo tokenaku ni kataru ga goto wa arazu mo aru kana
You say a loosened undersash is the sign of love, yet mine does not come loose at all. It seems things are not as you tell them.
Gosen Wakashu - Unknown Poet
Utsutsu ni mo hakanaki koto no wabishiki wa nenaku ni yume to omou narikeri
What makes even waking things so painfully fleeting is that, though I have not slept, I find myself thinking of them as a dream.
Gosen Wakashu - Unknown Poet
Tamuke senu wakare suru mi no wabishiki wa hitome o tabi to omou narikeri
What makes this parting, made without any offering for the road, so hard to bear is that I think of the watchful eyes of others as a long journey keeping us apart.
Gosen Wakashu - Ki no Tsurayuki