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- Gosen Wakashu
Musubiokishi tane naranedomo miru kara ni itodo shinobu no kusa o tsumu kana
Though this is no seed that she bore and left behind, the moment I look at it I gather all the more the grass of remembrance.
Gosen Wakashu - Principal Handmaid
Kokora yo o kiku ga uchi ni mo kanashiki wa hito no namida mo tsuki ya shinuran
Of all the many deaths I have heard of in this world, the saddest thing is this: I wonder whether even your tears have not run dry.
Gosen Wakashu - Ise
Kiku hito mo aware chō naru wakare ni wa itodo namida zo tsukisezarikeru
For a parting that even those who only hear of it call pitiful, my tears, all the more, never come to an end.
Gosen Wakashu - Unknown Poet
Itazura ni kyō ya kurenan atarashiki haru no hajime wa mukashi nagara ni
Will today too darken into evening for nothing—though the beginning of the new spring has come just as it always did?
Gosen Wakashu - Fujiwara no Sadakata
Naku namida furinishi toshi no koromode wa atarashiki ni mo kawarazarikeri
My sleeves from the year now gone, where my tears rained down as I wept, have not changed at all, even with the coming of the new year.
Gosen Wakashu - Fujiwara no Kanesuke
Hito no yo no omoi ni kanau mono naraba waga mi wa kimi ni okuremashi ya wa
If human life went as we wished it, would I ever have been left behind by you?
Gosen Wakashu - Fujiwara no Sadakata
Nenu yume ni mukashi no kabe o mitsuru yori utsutsu ni mono zo kanashikarikeru
Ever since I saw that wall from the past, as if in a dream dreamed without sleeping, everything in the waking world has seemed so sad.
Gosen Wakashu - Fujiwara no Kanesuke
Yū sareba ne ni yuku oshi no hitori shite tsumagoi su naru koe no kanashisa
As evening falls, the mandarin duck going to its roost alone seems to be crying for its lost mate—how sad that voice is.
Gosen Wakashu - Fujiwara no Fuyutsugu
Ominaeshi karenishi nobe ni sumu hito wa mazu saku hana o matade to mo mizu
I who live on a moor where the maidenflowers have withered do not even look upon these first-blooming flowers as ones I had not waited for.
Gosen Wakashu - Fujiwara no Tadahira
Naki hito no kage dani mienu yarimizu no soko wa namida ni nagashite zo koshi
Into the depths of the garden stream, where not even the reflection of the one now gone can be seen, I let my tears flow before I came away.
Gosen Wakashu - Ise
Hitori yuku koto koso ukere furusato no Nara no naraite mishi hito mo nami
How bitter it is to go alone—for in my old home of Nara, the one I was used to seeing is there no more.
Gosen Wakashu - Ise
Sumizome no koki mo usuki mo miru toki wa kasanete mono zo kanashikarikeru
Whenever I look upon the ink-black mourning robes, both the dark and the pale, sorrow comes over me layer upon layer.
Gosen Wakashu - Fujiwara no Hōshi
Kinō made chiyo to chigirishi kimi o waga shide no yamaji ni tazunu beki kana
You, with whom only yesterday I vowed to share a thousand years—must I now seek you on the mountain road to the land of the dead?
Gosen Wakashu - Fujiwara no Morosuke
Aratama no toshi koekurashi tsune mo naki hatsuuguisu no ne ni zo nakaruru
The new year has come and the days go by, and in this fleeting world, at the song of the first warbler, I cannot help crying aloud.
Gosen Wakashu - Daughter of Fujiwara no Harukami
Ne ni tatete nakanu hi wa nashi uguisu no mukashi no haru o omoiyaritsutsu
Not a day goes by that I do not cry aloud, like the warbler singing, as my thoughts go back to the springs of the past.
Gosen Wakashu - Taifu
Morotomo ni okiishi aki no tsuyu bakari kakaramu mono to omoikakeki ya
In that autumn when we stayed up together as the dew settled, did I ever think, even as little as a drop of dew, that it would come to this?
Gosen Wakashu - Daughter of Fujiwara no Harukami