Ah, wait a while—
o cuckoo returning
to the mountain home;
bear a message for me:
I am weary of this world.
- Meaning
-
Ah, wait a while, O cuckoo returning to the mountains; carry a message for me—that I have grown weary of living in this world.
- Commentary
-
Book III, Summer Poems
A poem from the end of the cuckoo’s season.
It expresses a feeling of weariness with the world, though not in a deeply desperate sense.
- Author
-
Mikuni no Machi
- Source
-
Kokin Wakashu
- Other
-
-
From mountain depths,
the cuckoos come and cry,
one after another—
as though asking aloud,
who among them surpasses all.
-
Do not now return
to the mountains, cuckoo bird—
you have come at last;
as long as your voice endures,
cry here at my dwelling.
-
In early summer rain,
as I dwell in troubled thought,
the cuckoo at night,
cries deep into the darkness—
whither has it flown away?
-
Is it the dark night,
or has it lost its way?
the cuckoo cries on,
unable to pass beyond
my dwelling, lingering there.