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- Shin Kokin Wakashu
Oi no nami koekeru mi koso aware nare kotoshi mo ima wa sue no matsuyama
How moving it is, this body that has passed over wave after wave of old age—and now this year too has reached its end, like the waves that cross the Pine Hill of Sue.
Shin Kokin Wakashu - Jakuren
Kyō goto ni kyō ya kagiri to oshimedomo mata mo kotoshi ni ainikeru kana
Every year on this day I have grieved, thinking it might be my last—and yet here I am, meeting the close of another year once more.
Shin Kokin Wakashu - Fujiwara no Shunzei
Takakiya ni noborite mireba keburi tatsu tami no kamado wa nigiwai ni keri
When I climb the high tower and look out, smoke is rising everywhere; the hearths of my people have grown prosperous at last.
Shin Kokin Wakashu - Emperor Nintoku
Hatsuharu no hatsune no kyō no tamabahaki te ni toru kara ni yuraku tama no o
On this first Day of the Rat in the early spring, the moment I take the jeweled broom in my hand, the jewels strung upon its cord sway and ring against one another.
Shin Kokin Wakashu - Unknown Poet
Ne no hi shite shimetsuru nobe no himekomatsu hikade ya chiyo no kage o matamashi
The little pine in the field I roped off as my own on the Day of the Rat—shall I leave it unpulled and wait for the shade it will cast a thousand years from now?
Shin Kokin Wakashu - Fujiwara no Kiyotada
Kimi ga yo no toshi no kazu oba shirotae no hama no masago to tare ka shikiken
Who could it have been that spread out the years of my lord's reign as the countless grains of white sand upon the beach?
Shin Kokin Wakashu - Ki no Tsurayuki
Wakana ouru nobe to iu nobe o kimi ga tame yorozuyo shimete tsuman to zo omou
Every field where young greens grow, for my lord's sake, I will rope off as my own for ten thousand ages and gather the greens there—so I resolve.
Shin Kokin Wakashu - Ki no Tsurayuki
Yūdasuki chitose o kakete ashihiki no yamaai no iro wa kawarazari keri
As a sacred sash is hung across the shoulders, so across a thousand years the color dyed with mountain indigo has never changed.
Shin Kokin Wakashu - Ki no Tsurayuki
Kimi ga yo ni aubeki haru no ōkereba chiru tomo sakura akumade zo min
Since the springs we are to meet in my lord's reign are many, I will gaze upon the cherry blossoms to my heart's content, even though they scatter.
Shin Kokin Wakashu - Minamoto no Morofusa
Suminoe no hama no masago o fumu tazu wa hisashiki ato o tomuru nari keri
The cranes that tread the fine sand on the beach of Suminoe are, I see, leaving behind them tracks that will long endure.
Shin Kokin Wakashu - Ise
Toshigoto ni oisou take no yoyo o hete kawaranu iro o tare to ka wa min
Year after year the bamboo grows anew, adding joint upon joint through age after age—whose could I take this unchanging color to be?
Shin Kokin Wakashu - Ki no Tsurayuki
Chitose furu onoe no matsu wa akikaze no koe koso kaware iro wa kawarazu
The pine on the mountain peak that has stood a thousand years—its voice in the autumn wind may change, but its color never does.
Shin Kokin Wakashu - Oshikochi no Mitsune
Yamakawa no kiku no shitamizu ika nareba nagarete hito no oi o sekuran
The water flowing beneath the chrysanthemums in the mountain stream—why is it that, even as it flows away, it holds back the coming of old age?
Shin Kokin Wakashu - Fujiwara no Okikaze
Inoritsutsu nao nagatsuki no kiku no hana izure no aki ka uete mizaran
Praying all the while that life may last still longer, in which autumn would I fail to plant the chrysanthemums of the Long Month and gaze upon them? In every autumn I shall.
Shin Kokin Wakashu - Ki no Tsurayuki
Yamabito no oru sode niou kiku no tsuyu uchiharau ni mo chiyo wa henu beshi
The dew of chrysanthemums, fragrant on the sleeve of the mountain dweller who plucks them—even in the moment it takes to brush it away, a thousand years must surely pass.
Shin Kokin Wakashu - Fujiwara no Shunzei
Kannazuki momiji mo shiranu tokiwagi ni yorozuyo kakare mine no shirakumo
On the evergreen tree that knows nothing of crimson leaves even in the Tenth Month, hang for ten thousand ages, O white clouds upon the peak.
Shin Kokin Wakashu - Kiyohara no Motosuke