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- Izayoi Nikki
Natsugoromo haya tachikaete miyakobito ima ya matsuramu yama hototogisu
The summer robes are already cut and changed, and by now the people of the capital must be waiting for the cuckoo of the hills.
Izayoi Nikki - Abutsu-ni
Kusa mo ki mo kozo mishi mama ni kawaranedo arishi ni mo ninu kokochi nomi shite
Grass and trees are unchanged, just as I saw them last year; and yet nothing feels as it once did.
Hito yori mo kokoro tsukushite hototogisu tada hitokoe o kyō zo kikitsuru
I have spent more heart on it than anyone, and today at last I heard it: one note of the cuckoo, and no more.
Shinobine wa Hiki no yatsu naru hototogisu kumoi ni takaku itsuka nanoramu
Cuckoo of the valley they call Hiki, keeping your voice low: when will you call out your name high up among the clouds?
Izayoi Nikki - Abutsu-ni
Ikabakari ko o omou tsuru no tobiwakare narawanu tabi no sora ni nakuramu
How must it be with her: the crane that loves her young has flown away from them, and cries under a travelling sky she does not know.
Sore yue ni tobiwakarete mo ashitazu no ko o omou kata wa nao zo kanashiki
It was for their sake that I flew away and left them; and still the reed-crane's love for her young is grief, and none the less for that.
Izayoi Nikki - Abutsu-ni
Miyako made kataru mo tōshi omoine ni shinobu mukashi no yume no nagori o
It is too far to tell the capital of it: what remains of a dream of the old days, come to me as I lay thinking of him.
Izayoi Nikki - Abutsu-ni
Hakanashi ya tabine no yume ni mayoikite samureba mienu hito no omokage
How fleeting: he wandered into my dream on the road, and when I woke there was nothing left of that face.
Izayoi Nikki - Abutsu-ni
Azumaji no kusa no makura wa tōkeredo katareba chikaki inishie no yume
Your grass pillow on the eastern road is far away; and yet, once you tell of it, that dream of the old days comes close.
Izuku yori tabine no yuka ni kayouramu omoiokitsuru tsuyu o tazunete
From where does he come, night after night, to your traveller's bed? Seeking, surely, the dew of the thoughts he left behind.
Kokoro nomi hedatezu tote mo tabigoromo yamaji kasanaru ochi no shirakumo
Our hearts, at least, are not divided; and yet between us the mountain roads lie fold on fold, and white clouds stand far off.
Izayoi Nikki - Reizei Tameuji
Koishinobu kokoro ya taguu asayū ni yukite wa kaeru ochi no shirakumo
Perhaps my longing heart travels with them: those far white clouds that go out and come back again, morning and evening.
Izayoi Nikki - Abutsu-ni
Karisome no kusa no makura no yonayona o omoiyaru ni mo sode zo tsuyukeki
Only to think of those nights of yours, one after another on a grass pillow taken for a while, leaves my sleeves wet as with dew.
Izayoi Nikki - Reizei Tameuji
Aki fukaki kusa no makura ni ware zo naku furisutete koshi suzumushi no ne o
Deep in autumn, on this grass pillow, it is I who weep — for the bell-cricket's voice I turned my back on and left behind.
Izayoi Nikki - Abutsu-ni
Kore o miba ikabakari ka to omoitsuru hito ni kawarite ne koso nakarure
How much it would have meant to him, I thought, had he seen these; and in his place, the one who is gone, I find myself weeping aloud.
Izayoi Nikki - Abutsu-ni
Tachiwakare Fuji no keburi o mite mo nao kokorobososa no ikani soikemu
You parted from us and went; and even at the sight of Fuji's smoke, how much more loneliness must have been added to your own.
Izayoi Nikki - Reizei Tamemori