To no avail,
it cries out again and again—
the warbler’s voice;
for these blossoms do not fall
only in this one year.
- Meaning
- Though it cries out again and again, it is to no avail—the blossoms do not fall only this year, and yet the warbler laments them so.
- Commentary
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Book II, Spring Poems (Part Two)
A poem composed upon hearing the warbler sing in a flowering tree.
The warbler is taken to be lamenting the falling blossoms, yet they do not fall only this year. The poet wonders why it cries out so each year, finding its grief difficult to understand.
- Author
- Oshikochi no Mitsune
- Source
- Kokin Wakashu
- Other
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- 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.
- As it flits from branch to branch, by its own wing-wind blossoms fall away; whom does it blame, I wonder, that it cries out so?
- Let us rein our steeds, and go forth to see— in my old home, blossoms must be falling as though they were snow.
- Why should I resent the blossoms as they fall? in this fleeting world, shall I myself remain enduring beside them?