我のみやあはれと思はむきりぎりす
鳴く夕かげのやまとなでしこ
鳴く夕かげのやまとなでしこ
- Roma-ji
-
Ware nomi ya aware to omowamu kirigirisu
naku yūkage no yamatonadeshiko - English Translation
-
am I alone in this
to find such beauty moving?
crickets softly cry—
in the evening’s fading light
blooms the yamato-nadeshiko.
- Meaning
- Am I alone in finding it moving—the yamato-nadeshiko blooming in the evening light where crickets cry?
- Commentary
-
Book Four Autumn Poems (Part One)
Composed for a poetry contest in the imperial court during the Kanpyō era.
The poem expresses regret at beholding alone the delicate beauty of the nadeshiko blooming in the autumn evening. It suggests that anyone who saw this scene would be equally moved.
"Kirigirisu" refers to what is now called a cricket, and "yamato-nadeshiko" is one of the seven autumn grasses.
- Author
- Sosei Hoshi
- Source
- Kokin Wakashu
- Other
-
- from this time onward I shall not even plant to see the plume of silver grass— for when its ears emerge in autumn the loneliness grows too deep.
- is it the grasses’ sleeves in the autumn fields that I see? plumes of silver grass emerging, seem to beckon— like sleeves that call me near.
- all in shades of green I saw them as a single grass in the springtime fields— yet in autumn they appear as flowers of many hues.
- amid a hundred grasses whose blossoms loose their cords wide in autumn fields fair, let my heart give way to longing— let no one reproach me so.