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- Gosen Wakashu
Oshinabete mine mo taira ni narinanan yama no ha naku wa tsuki mo kakureji
Would that every peak alike were leveled flat! If there were no mountain rim, the moon would never hide away.
Gosen Wakashu - Kamitsukeno no Mineo
Waga yado ni aiyadori shite sumu kawazu yoru ni nareba ya mono wa kanashiki
O frogs who share my lodging and dwell beneath my roof—is it because night has come that everything feels so full of sorrow?
Gosen Wakashu - Unknown Poet
Tamae kogu ashikari obune sashiwakete tare o tare to ka ware wa sadamen
Like a reed-cutter's little boat poling its way through the thick reeds of Tamae, how could I tell one from another and settle on just one?
Gosen Wakashu - Unknown Poet
Michinoku no Obuchi no koma mo nogau ni wa are koso masare natsuku mono ka wa
Even the colts of Obuchi in Michinoku, left to roam and graze the open fields, only grow wilder—how could they ever become tame?
Gosen Wakashu - Unknown Poet
Izuku tote tazunekitsuran tamakazura ware wa mukashi no ware nara naku ni
Where did you think you would find me, coming all this way, O jeweled band? I am no longer the man I once was.
Gosen Wakashu - Minamoto no Yoshi
Asa goto ni mishi miyakoji no taenureba koto ayamari ni tou hito mo nashi
Now that the road to the capital I saw every morning has been cut off, no one comes to ask after me, not even by mistake.
Gosen Wakashu - Unknown Poet
Itsu shika to Matsuchi no yama no sakurabana machite mo yoso ni kiku ga kanashisa
I longed for you as one waits for the cherry blossoms of Mount Matsuchi, yet for all my waiting I only hear of you from afar—how sad it is.
Gosen Wakashu - Unknown Poet
Ise wataru kawa wa sode yori nagaruredo tou ni towarenu mi wa usenu meri
The river that runs through Ise flows from my very sleeves, yet I, who ask after you and am never asked after, seem about to fade away.
Gosen Wakashu - Ise
Hitome dani mienu yamaji ni tatsu kumo o tare sumigama no kemuri to iuran
Who could call the clouds rising over a mountain path where not a soul is to be seen the smoke of a charcoal kiln where someone lives?
Gosen Wakashu - Genshin
Asukagawa fuchise ni kawaru kokoro to wa minakami shimo no hito mo iu meri
That yours is a heart that shifts like the deeps and shallows of the Asuka River—so, it seems, say all the people up and down the stream, high and low alike.
Gosen Wakashu - Ise
Ima komu to iishi bakari o inochi nite matsu ni kenubeshi sakusame no toji
Living on nothing but your words, "I will come right back," she seems about to fade away as she waits—the Lady of Sakusame.
Kazu naranu mi nomi monouku omōete mataruru made mo narinikeru kana
Feeling only that I, who count for nothing, was the one to be miserable, I stayed away—and now have become someone waited for.
Ari to kiku Otowa no yama no hototogisu nani ka kakururan naku koe wa shite
O cuckoo of Mount Otowa, said to be there—why should you hide yourself away when your song can plainly be heard?
Gosen Wakashu - Unknown Poet
Ashi no ura no ito kitanaku mo miyuru kana nami wa yorite mo arawazarikeri
How very dirty the Bay of Reeds—the soles of your feet—appears! The waves, it seems, came lapping but never washed it clean.
Gosen Wakashu - Unknown Poet
Hitogokoro tatoete mireba shiratsuyu no kiyuru ma mo nao hisashikarikeri
If I liken the human heart to something, even the brief moment before the white dew fades seems long by comparison.
Gosen Wakashu - Unknown Poet
Yo no naka to iitsuru mono ka kagerou no aru ka naki ka no hodo ni zo arikeru
So this is what we have called the world—like the mayfly, it was a thing so faint one cannot tell whether it is there or not.
Gosen Wakashu - Unknown Poet