Songs of a Cowherd/Arise, Youth of Japan
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1904
Arise, Youth of Japan
(On the eve of the Russo-Japanese War)
Oh the burnished sword
Handed down from the age of the gods!
The time has come to lay our hands
On this sword divine.
(On the eve of the declaration of war)
By the decree of my sovereign lord
I go, leaving my aged parents,
My wife and my children,
And will not turn me around
Even to gaze behind.
My child and my young wife
Pressing me on either side,
Come to see me off to war.
Though in my blood I weep,
My eyes are dry.