Of Old Japan
again peacefully after this parting"—and I thought the Buddha would pity and grant my prayer.
It was midwinter. It rained all day. In the night a cloud-turning wind blew terribly and the sky cleared. The moon became exquisitely bright, and it was sad to see the tall reeds near the house broken and blown down by the wind.
Dead stalks of reeds must be reminded of good Autumn days.
In midwinter depths the tempest lays them low.
Confused and broken.
["Their fate is like my own," is intangibly expressed in this poem.]
A messenger arrived from the East.
Father's letter:
"I wandered through the Province [Hitachi, now Ibarakiken] going into every Shinto shrine and saw a wide field with a beautiful river running through it.[1] There was a beautiful wood. My first thought was of you, and to make you see it, and I asked the name of that grove. 'The grove of Longing After One's Child' was the answer. I thought of the one who had first named it and was extremely sad. Alighting from my horse I stood there for two hours.
After leaving—
Like me he must have yearned
Sorrowful to see—
The forest of Longing After One's Child."
To see that letter is a sadder thing than to have seen the forest.
[The poem sent in return presents difficulties in the
- ↑ The Toné River.
