Is it spring, I ask,
or are the flowers too slow to come?
I would know by hearing—
yet even the bush warbler
does not sing at all.
- Meaning
-
Though it is spring, I would ask whether spring has come too soon or the flowers are too slow to bloom; I would judge by hearing, yet even the bush warbler does not sing at all.
- Commentary
-
Spring Songs, Book One.
Composed at the beginning of spring.
It is a poem that sings of the longing for flowers and the bush warbler.
Spring is in name only, and there is nothing in the scene that makes one feel spring; a sense of poetic feeling can be seen.
The bush warbler is a bird that heralds the coming of spring.
- Author
-
Fujiwara no Kotomichi
- Source
-
Kokin Wakashu
- Other
-
-
Though I stand here
in the light of spring’s own sun,
still upon my head
the snow falls down,
and this is wretched to me.
-
When haze arises,
and buds on the trees are spring,
if the snow should fall,
even this village with no flowers
has flowers falling down.
-
People say, “spring has come,”
yet, unless the bush warbler sings,
I think it has not—
so long as it does not sing,
spring is not yet here.
-
In the valley wind,
between gaps where ice melts,
from each small opening
waves come flowing out—are these
spring’s very first flowers?