My heart, thinking
“How beautiful he is”
Is like a swift river
Which though one dams it and dams it
Will still break through.
translated by Arthur Waley
The Man’yoshu
from Climbing Kagu Hill by Yamabe No Akahito in the Man’yoshü
I would always pass
through Asuka’s ancient capital.
There the mountains are lofty
and the river’s flow is broad and grand.
Cranes soar wildly
through the morning clouds,
and frogs sing noisily
in the evening mist.
Each time I see it
I find myself in tears,
as my mind turns to the past.
translated by Ian Hideo Levy
from the Man’yoshu
I loathe the twin seas
Of being and not being
And long for the mountain
Of bliss untouched by
The changing tides.
translated by Kenneth Rexroth
poem by Yamanoue Okura from The Man’yoshü
Like the unchanging cliffs,
I would remain just as I am.
But I am living in this world
and cannot hold time back.
translated by Ian Hideo Levy
poem by Prince Ishihara from The Man’yoshü
I will sway this way and that
to the whims of your heart,
you who are to me
like the unique and precious jewel
nestled in a crown of hair.
translated by Ian Hideo Levy
poem by Prince Yuge from The Man’yoshü
Is it a bird
longing for the past
that soars crying
over the imperial well,
there by the evergreen?
translated by Ian Hideo Levy
poem by Prince Naga from The Man’yoshü
If autumn were here
these would be mountains
as we see them now,
where the deer cries
in longing for his wife–
on these high fields.
translated by Ian Hideo Levy
from The Man’yoshu: Otomo No Yakamochi
The world is never
any more than just this—
I knew it all along,
but an aching heart
is still hard to bear.
translated by Ian Hideo Levy
Leonard Durso 