Poem 72, by Lady Kii, from the Ogura Hyakunin Isshu

Poem 72, by Lady Kii, from the Ogura Hyakunin Isshu (One Hundred Poets, One Poem Each)

Poem 72, in calligraphy in the hand of Abbot Genchin circa 1660 CE

Poem 72, in modern Japanese characters

Poem 72 transliteration into Roman alphabet

Oto ni kiku

takashi no hama no

ada-nami wa

kakeji ya sode no

nure mo koso sure



Poem 72, translated by Peter McMillan

I keep well away

from the well-known fickle waves

that pound on Takashi shore,

for I know I’d be sorry

if my sleeves got wet.

Source of the text (all versions listed above) - One Hundred Poets, One Poem Each: A Translation of the Ogura Hyakunin Isshu, translated and edited by Peter McMillan.  New York: Columbia University Press, 2008, pages 74, 125, 144, 169.

TJB: Staying dry. Like the nymph to the shepherd, like an anti-Dover Beach, the poet here warily smacks down an overeager poet’s wave metaphor.

 

 

 

"Remembrance" by Emily Brontë

REMEMBRANCE

COLD in the earth—and the deep snow piled above thee,

    Far, far removed, cold in the dreary grave!

Have I forgot, my only Love, to love thee,

    Severed at last by Time’s all-severing wave?

Now, when alone, do my thoughts no longer hover

    Over the mountains, on that northern shore,

Resting their wings where heath and fern-leaves cover

    Thy noble heart forever, ever more?

Cold in the earth—and fifteen wild Decembers

    From those brown hills, have melted into spring:

Faithful, indeed, is the spirit that remembers

    After such years of change and suffering!

Sweet Love of youth, forgive, if I forget thee,

    While the world’s tide is bearing me along;

Other desires and other hopes beset me,

    Hopes which obscure, but cannot do thee wrong!

No later light has lightened up my heaven,

    No second morn has ever shone for me;

All my life’s bliss from thy dear life was given,

    All my life’s bliss is in the grave with thee.

But, when the days of golden dreams had perished,

    And even Despair was powerless to destroy,

Then did I learn how existence could be cherished,

    Strengthened, and fed, without the aid of joy.

Then did I check the tears of useless passion—

    Weaned my young soul from yearning after thine;

Sternly denied its burning wish to hasten

    Down to that tomb already more than mine.

And, even yet, I dare not let it languish,

    Dare not indulge in memory’s rapturous pain;

Once drinking deep of that divinest anguish,

    How could I seek the empty world again?

Source of the text – The Complete Poems of Emily Jane Brontë, Edited by Clement Shorter.  New York: George H. Doran Company, 1924, pages 7-8.

TJB: This growl-lyric written to an irreplaceable long-dead beloved in rough Yorky trochaics & Gothic-obvious rhyme sings: Live joylessly & forget.

  

  

  

  

"Daybreak" by Jean-Joseph Rabearivelo

Daybreak

Have you seen the dawn go poaching

in night’s orchard?

See, she is coming back

down eastern pathways

overgrown with lily-blooms.

From head to foot she is splashed with milk

like those children the heifers suckled long ago.

She holds a torch in hands

stained black and blue like the lips of a girl

munching mulberries.

Escaping one by one there fly before her

the birds she has taken in her traps.

Translated from the French by John Reed and Clive Wake.

 

Source of the text - Voices from Twentieth Century Africa: Griots and Towncriers, selected with an introduction by Chinweizu.  London: Faber and Faber, 1988, page 349.

TJB: Like the first morning, dawn is elegantly, extravagantly personified here as a poacher, creeping into the garden of night; but hunting what?