thus as I am now
in one way or another I live
lingering on still—
if only there were a way to meet
your eight thousand years

Meaning

In this way, somehow lingering on in life, if only there were a way to meet your long enduring years.

Commentary

Book Seven Felicitations

A poem composed by the emperor when he bestowed a seventieth-year congratulatory gift upon the monk Henjō.

The phrase “in one way or another, lingering on” suggests a sense that the speaker may not live long. Knowing that Emperor Kōkō passed away two years later, and Henjō five years after that, the poem carries a quiet awareness of mortality, expressing a wish to live on and share in the other’s long years.

Author

Emperor Koko

Source

Kokin Wakashu

Other

on Shio-no-yama at the jutting shore of the strand where plovers abide— they seem to cry “eight thousand years” for the span of your noble reign
let my span of years be added to your eight thousand— if it may be so then keep what thus remains as a memory of me
by the mighty gods was this staff perhaps cut forth— as I take it up now even the slope of a thousand years seems one I may yet cross
cherry blossoms scatter, whirl, and cloud the way— so that the path by which old age is said to come may lose itself and stray

thus as I am now in one way or another I live lingering on still— if only there were a way to meet your eight thousand years

thus as I am now
in one way or another I live
lingering on still—
if only there were a way to meet
your eight thousand years