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Quotes from Kokin Wakashū: The First Imperial Anthology of Japanese Poetry — Ono no Komachi

825–900 Japan

← All quotes by Ono no Komachi

4 quotes

Autumn nights, it seems,
are long by repute alone:
scarcely had we met
when morning's first light appeared,
leaving everything unsaid.

Kokin Wakashū: The First Imperial Anthology of Japanese Poetry (1985)

Iro miede
utsurou mono wa
yo no naka no
hito no kokoro no
hana ni zo arikeru

Kokin Wakashū: The First Imperial Anthology of Japanese Poetry (1985)

Alas! The beauty
of the flowers has faded
and come to nothing,
while I have watched the rain,
lost in melancholy thought.

Kokin Wakashū: The First Imperial Anthology of Japanese Poetry (1985)

In this forlorn state
I find life dreary indeed:
if a stream beckoned,
I would gladly cut my roots
and float away like duckweed.

Kokin Wakashū: The First Imperial Anthology of Japanese Poetry (1985)

Attribution

Quotes and notes from Wikiquote: Ono no Komachi (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0.