As years pass,
my age indeed has grown old—
such change there is;
yet when I look on blossoms,
there are no troubled thoughts.
- Meaning
- As the years have passed, I have grown old; yet when I look upon the blossoms, there are no troubled thoughts at all.
- Commentary
-
Spring Songs, Book One
Seeing cherry blossoms arranged in a vase before the Empress at , this poem was composed.
It expresses the feelings of a father-minister, filled with quiet satisfaction at seeing his daughter as Empress.
- Author
- Fujiwara no Yoshifusa
- Source
- Kokin Wakashu
- Other
-
- High on the mountain, where people do not come at all, O cherry blossoms— do not grieve too bitterly; I will hasten to praise you.
- Mountain cherry trees— I have come on purpose to see; spring haze rises, on the peaks and on the slopes, standing thick, concealing them.
- If in this world there were no cherry blossoms at all, how utterly so— the heart of spring would then be so calm and untroubled.
- Would that there were no rushing, stone-splashing stream— O cherry blossoms, I would pluck you and come back for the one who has not seen.