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

— Ono no Komachi Kokin Wakashū: The First Imperial Anthology of Japanese Poetry (1985)

Aki no yo mo
na nomi narikeri
au to ieba
koto zo to mo naku
akenuru mono o

Original text (English)

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Notes from Wikiquote

p. 142

More quotes by Ono no Komachi

Imperceptible
It withers in the world,
This flower-like human heart.

One Hundred Poems from the Japanese (1955)

The flowers and my love
Passed away under the rain,
While I idly looked upon them
Where is my yester-love?

Yone Noguchi's The Spirit of Japanese Poetry (1914)

Although I come to you constantly
over the roads of dreams,
those nights of love
are not worth one waking touch of you.

Women Poets of Japan (1982)

I fell asleep thinking of him,
and he came to me.
If I had known it was only a dream
I would never have awakened.

Women Poets of Japan (1982)

Following the roads
Of dream to you, my feet
Never rest. But one glimpse of you
In reality would be
Worth all these many nights of love.

One Hundred More Poems from the Japanese (1976)

All Ono no Komachi quotes →

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Ono no Komachi (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.