As bush clover fades
and takes on autumn colors—
the cricket’s cry;
like me, who cannot find sleep,
are its nights filled with sorrow?
- Meaning
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Now that the bush clover has taken on autumn colors, are the crickets too, like me who cannot sleep, filled with sorrow through the night?
- Commentary
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Book Four Autumn Poems (Part One)
Bush clover, one of the seven grasses of autumn, has begun to change color and wither, suggesting that the season is deepening.
The poet wonders whether the crickets that cry through the night are, like them, unable to sleep because of sorrowful thoughts.
Though the word “to cry” is not explicitly used, the presence of night insects implies their sound, leading to the feeling expressed as “the night is sorrowful.”
- Author
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Unknown Poet
- Source
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Kokin Wakashu
- Other
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Cricket, do not cry
so bitterly in the night—
for this autumn eve,
though long your lament may be,
my own thoughts are longer still.
-
All through autumn nights,
not knowing when dawn has come,
the insects keep crying—
are they, like myself, as well,
filled with such sorrowful thoughts?
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On autumn nights,
the dew above all seems cold—
for in every clump
of grass the insects lament,
their voices filled with distress.
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In the ruined home
overgrown with grasses of longing—
thinking of you,
the pine-cricket’s lonely cry
sounds all the more sorrowful.