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- Gosen Wakashu
Yamagakure kiesenu yuki no wabishiki wa kimi matsu no ha ni kakarite zo furu
How wretched is the snow that lies hidden in the hills and never melts: it clings to the needles of the pine that waits for you, and so it falls, and so I pass my days.
Gosen Wakashu - Unknown Poet
Aratama no toshi wa kyō asu koenubeshi ausakayama o ware ya okuren
Today or tomorrow the old year will surely cross over; must I alone be left behind, unable to cross Ōsaka, the Slope of Meeting?
Gosen Wakashu - Fujiwara no Tokifuru
Saga no yama miyuki taenishi serikawa no chiyo no furumichi ato wa arikeri
The royal progresses of Emperor Saga's day had long since ceased, yet along the Seri River the ancient road of a thousand ages still keeps its trace, I find.
Gosen Wakashu - Ariwara no Yukihira
Okinasabi hito na togame so karigoromo kyō bakari to zo tazu mo naku naru
Do not reproach me for playing the old man. That I wear this hunting robe only for today—so, it seems, even the crane is crying.
Gosen Wakashu - Ariwara no Yukihira
Ima made ni nado ka wa hana no sakazu shite yosotose amari toshikiri wa suru
Why is it that, until now, your blossoms have never opened, and for forty years and more you have gone on as a tree that bears nothing?
Gosen Wakashu - Fujiwara no Tokihira
Haruharu no kazu wa wasurezu ari nagara hana sakanu ki o nani ni ueken
Spring after spring I have never lost count of the years, and yet, why was a tree that never blossoms ever planted at all?
Gosen Wakashu - Ki no Tomonori
Yo to tomo ni mine e fumoto e orinobori yuku kumo no mi wa ware ni zo arikeru
Forever going down and coming up, now to the peaks, now to the foothills—the lot of the drifting cloud, I find, is none other than my own.
Gosen Wakashu - Taira no Nakaki
Koto shigeshi shibashi wa tatere yoi no ma ni okeramu tsuyu wa idete harawamu
Tongues are so busy; please stand there for a little while. The dew that must have settled on you through the evening, I will come out and brush away myself.
Gosen Wakashu - Tachibana no Kachiko
Teru tsuki o masaki no tsuna ni yorikakete akazu wakaruru hito o tsunagan
I would twist the shining moonlight into a rope of masaki vine and with it bind you, who are leaving before we have had our fill of one another.
Gosen Wakashu - Minamoto no Tōru
Kagiri naki omoi no tsuna no naku wa koso masaki no kazura yori mo nayamame
Were there not already this boundless rope of longing, then indeed you might struggle to twist the masaki vine—but I am bound to you already.
Gosen Wakashu - Ariwara no Yukihira
Sumiwabinu ima wa kagiri to yamazato ni tsumagi korubeki yado motometemu
I have grown weary of living in this world. Saying "Now it is the end," I will seek out a dwelling in some mountain village where one cuts twigs for firewood.
Gosen Wakashu - Ariwara no Narihira
Ashihiki no yama ni oitaru shirakashi no shiraji na hito o kuchiki nari tomo
Like the white oak, shirakashi, growing on the mountain, I shall not know you—shiraji—not I, even should I rot away like fallen timber.
Gosen Wakashu - Oshikochi no Mitsune
Ise no umi no tsuri no uke naru sama naredo fukaki kokoro wa soko ni shizumeri
I may look like a fisherman's float bobbing on the Sea of Ise, but the depth of my heart lies sunk far down at the bottom.
Gosen Wakashu - Oshikochi no Mitsune
Shirakawa no taki no ito mimahoshikeredo midari ni hito wa yoseji mono o ya
I would so dearly love to see the threads of the Shirakawa Falls, and yet I suppose you would not let anyone come near them so carelessly.
Gosen Wakashu - Nakatsukasa
Shirakawa no taki no itonami midaretsutsu yoru o zo hito wa matsu to iu naru
The threads of the Shirakawa Falls run side by side in tangles, and so, they say, it is for the night—the time of twining—that people wait.
Gosen Wakashu - Fujiwara no Tadahira
Hachisuba no hai ni zo hito wa omouran yo ni wa koiji no naka ni oitsutsu
People must think of me as the young root of a lotus, for in this world I keep on growing in the mire—the mire of love.
Gosen Wakashu - Unknown Poet