Japanese Poems of the Heian Period and Before: My Translations to English

Now out of the dark
onto the path of darkness
unwilling I go.

Linger to shine on me, moon,
poised at the rim of the hill.
    --Izumi Shikibu

Only for you, lord,

am I out here in spring fields,

pulling early greens,

with snow falling

thick on my sleeves.

  --Emperor Koko

君がため
春の野に出でて
若菜つむ
わが衣手に
雪はふりつつ

kimi ga tame haru no no ni idete wakana tsumu waga koromode ni yuki wa furi tsutsu 

Almost showed you plum blossoms

that were a light fall of snow.

--Akahito

How few the moments

that my gaze has lit upon

the flowers of spring.

How many the months and days

that I have passed without fruit.

--Fujiwara no Okikase

The sea slips from the shore.

One white wave again stands fast.

A crane in the surf.

--The Emperor Uda

Destinations unknown,

two ships that left harbor

side by side, now diverge.

--Saigyo Hoshi

Before the dubious shrine

I stand dumbstruck and crying.

--Saigyo Hoshi

This world, I try not to see,

still dogs me like a shadow.

--Minamoto no Toshiyori

...to be in this world

the seagull sleeping alone

on the tossing sea...

--Tagaya Masahiro

Leaves fall on the roof,

blurring the silence of night

and the sound of rain.

--Minamoto no Yorizane

Rising and falling, waves

scour the moon in the sea,

effacing nothing.

--Kiyowara Fukayabu

Between the eternals,

the unmoving mountains

and incontinent seas,

we are flowers, quickest

among fleeting flowers.

--Anon.

Long into summer nights

when I think at last of bed

the dawn cuckoo sings

--Tsurayuki



Spring, and a girl is walking
a path in peach blossom light.
     --Otomo no Yakamochi

Foam on the water

I am, that still wants to live

for a thousand years.

--Otomo no Yakamochi

To an empty land

she and I would go and live

alone together.

--Otomo no Yakamochi

Sad to meet in dreams:

My hand reaches out to you

and flounders awake.

--Otomo no Yakamochi

Should we never meet,

and entwine,  threads making cord,

now this way, now that,

upon what line shall I string

all the jewels of my life?

--Sakanoe Korenori

Yes, she may not think of me

not ever forgetting her.

--Anon.

Plum trees bloom again.

Empty as a locust shell,

my own springless world.

--Anon.

Love without requite:

a prayer in the temple

behind a starving god.

--Lady Kasa

But by its own call

on the evergreen mountain

the deer knows the fall.

--Onakatomi Yoshinobu

Unmistakably

even here, far south in Tsu,

winter's come at last

to my cottage, hidden down

in a blanket of rushes.

--Minamoto no Shigeyuki

That this day too comes

to dusk:  more clear with each note

of the temple bell.

--Anon.

Unbearably cold,

sanderlings cried in the wind

across the river

the night I went to see her

whom I loved beyond bearing.

--Tsurayuki

Short as a segment

of Naniwa marsh reed,

not even that much

time for us to meet again

on the long passage, is there?

    --Lady Ise

 難波潟 

みじかき芦の
ふしのまも
あはでこの世を
過ぐしてよとや

Naniwa gata mijikaki ashi no fushi no ma mo awade kono yo o sugushite yo to ya