Blame, with your cry,
the wind that blows—
O warbler;
for have I so much as
laid a hand upon the blossoms?
- Meaning
- O warbler, cry out in reproach against the wind that blows—for I have not so much as touched the blossoms.
- Commentary
-
Book II, Spring Poems (Part Two)
The warbler seems to cry as though lamenting the scattering blossoms, as if blaming the poet. Yet it is the wind that causes them to fall, and the poet protests innocence, urging the bird to direct its reproach toward the wind instead.
- Author
- Unknown Poet
- Source
- Kokin Wakashu
- Other
-
- Seeing the blossoms, even my heart has changed its hue; yet I shall not show it in my face, lest others come to know.
- Each time the warbler sang in the fields, I went to see; upon the fading blossoms, the wind was blowing still.
- If falling blossoms could be stayed by weeping, then surely I would not yield to the warbler’s cry.
- Is it for the grief of blossoms falling away that it sounds so? In spring haze on Tatsuta Mountain, the warbler’s voice is heard.