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- Gosen Wakashu
Ware naranu kusaba mo mono wa omoikeri sode yori hoka ni okeru shiratsuyu
So even the grass leaves, which are not I, have their sorrows—for there lies white dew elsewhere than on my tear-soaked sleeves.
Gosen Wakashu - Fujiwara no Tadakuni
Hitogokoro arashi no kaze no samukereba konome mo miezu eda zo shioruru
Your heart is a storm wind so cold that no buds can be seen—nor can these eyes of mine see for tears—and the branches only droop and wither.
Gosen Wakashu - Ise
Uki nagara hito o wasuren koto katami waga kokoro koso kawarazarikere
Bitter as it is, forgetting you is too hard for me, and so it is my heart, I find, that has stayed unchanged.
Gosen Wakashu - Unknown Poet
Utatane no toko ni tomareru shiratama wa kimi ga okikeru tsuyu ni ya aruran
These white jewels left behind on the bed where you dozed—are they the dew you left lying there when you rose and went away?
Gosen Wakashu - Minamoto no Hitoshi
Kai mo naki kusa no makura ni oku tsuyu no nani ni kienade ochitomariken
On a worthless pillow of grass the dew was laid—why did it not simply vanish, but fall and linger there instead?
Omoiyaru kata mo shirarezu kurushiki wa kokoromadoi no tsune ni ya aruramu
That I can find no way to ease my thoughts and suffer so—is this simply the way of a heart gone astray?
Gosen Wakashu - Unknown Poet
Suzumushi ni otoranu ne koso nakarekere mukashi no aki o omoiyaritsutsu
My voice rises in weeping no less than the bell cricket's song, as my thoughts keep turning to the autumns of long ago.
Gosen Wakashu - Fujiwara no Saneyori
Yūgure no sabishiki mono wa asagao no hana o tanomeru yado ni zo arikeru
What is truly lonely at dusk, I find, is a house that puts its trust in the morning glory's flower.
Gosen Wakashu - Unknown Poet
Hahasoyama mine no arashi no kaze o itami furu koto no ha o kaki zo atsumuru
The storm wind on the peak of Mount Hahaso blows so fiercely that I gather up the falling leaves—and so I write together these old leaves of words.
Gosen Wakashu - Ki no Tsurayuki
Yo no naka o itoite ama no sumu kata mo ukime nomi koso miewatarikere
Even where one dwells as a nun, like the fisherfolk by the sea, weary of the world, nothing meets the eye but floating seaweed—nothing but sorrow, far and wide.
Yamakawa no oto ni nomi kiku momoshiki o mi o haya nagara miru yoshi mo gana
The palace I hear of only by report, like the distant sound of a mountain stream—if only there were some way to see it again, just as I was before.
Gosen Wakashu - Ise
Yo no naka wa ika ni ya ika ni kaze no oto o kiku ni mo ima wa mono ya kanashiki
How is it, how is it between you two? Now, when you hear the sound of the wind, do you find everything so sad?
Gosen Wakashu - Unknown Poet
Yo no naka wa isa tomo isa ya kaze no oto wa aki ni aki sou kokochi koso sure
How things stand between us—well, who can say? But the sound of the wind feels like autumn heaped upon autumn, his weariness of me added to the season's sorrow.
Gosen Wakashu - Ise
Tatoekuru tsuyu to hitoshiki mi ni shi araba waga omoi ni mo kien to ya suru
If you are a being like the dew to which life has always been compared, would you then vanish in the very fire of my love?
Gosen Wakashu - Unknown Poet
Sasagani no sora ni sugakeru ito yori mo kokorobososhi ya taenu to omoeba
More forlorn than the thread a spider spins across the empty air is my heart, when I think that our bond has snapped.
Gosen Wakashu - Unknown Poet
Kaze fukeba taenu to miyuru kumo no i mo mata kakitsukade yamu to ya wa kiku
When the wind blows, a spider's thread may seem to snap—but have you ever heard that it ends there, never to be spun again?
Gosen Wakashu - Unknown Poet