Cease not your song,
cry on, O warbler—
for in a single year,
shall there come again
another spring like this?
- Meaning
- Do not let your voice fall silent—sing on, O warbler; for in a year, will such a spring ever come again?
- Commentary
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Book II, Spring Poems (Part Two)
A poem paired in a poetry contest at the imperial court during the Kanpyō era.
Since spring does not come twice within the same year, the poet urges the warbler to keep singing without pause. It is a poem of late spring, when the season is nearly over.
- Author
- Fujiwara no Okikaze
- Source
- Kokin Wakashu
- Other
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- Since there are no blooms left for it to hold with song, the warbler too, in the end, it seems, has grown weary of its cry.
- Following upstream the drifting of fallen blossoms along the water, I found that in the mountains spring itself had come to an end.
- Though there is nothing that can be held and kept, how fleeting it is— that with each falling blossom my heart is drawn along.
- Soaked through with rain, I forced myself to break them— for within the year, how many days of spring can there truly be?