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.
- Meaning
- People say that spring has already come, yet so long as the bush warbler does not sing to herald it, I think it is not yet spring.
- Commentary
-
Spring Songs, Book One.
A poem of early spring.
In response to people saying, “Spring has come,” the speaker thinks, “It has not,” giving the poem a conversational structure.
It expresses the longing to await the bush warbler, the first messenger of spring.
- Author
- Mibu no Tadamine
- Source
- Kokin Wakashu
- Other
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- 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.
- 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.
- In the valley wind, between gaps where ice melts, from each small opening waves come flowing out—are these spring’s very first flowers?
- The scent of flowers, entrusting it to the wind, I send it along— a guide that hastens to lead the bush warbler forth.