Is it the same bird
that cried so much last summer,
the cuckoo I hear?
or is it another—
its voice unchanged at all.
- Meaning
- Is it the same cuckoo that cried so much last summer, or another? Its voice has not changed at all.
- Commentary
-
Book III, Summer Poems
The unchanged cry of the cuckoo brings back memories of the previous summer.
The poet’s feeling is conveyed in the phrase “its voice unchanged.”
- Author
- Unknown Poet
- Source
- Kokin Wakashu
- Other
-
- Just as it grows dark, already it turns to dawn— this summer night so brief; is it for this it cries on, the cuckoo in the hills?
- In summer mountains, has the one it longs for gone deep into their depths? raising up its voice in cries, the cuckoo calls and calls.
- In the rainy skies of the Fifth Month, resounding, the cuckoo cries on— what sorrow burdens its heart, that it calls so endlessly?
- No cuckoo’s voice is heard here at all, and yet the mountain echo— why does it not bring to me the cry from somewhere afar?