あさ霞花かあらぬか春風の吹上の浜に波や立つらん
| asagasumi hana ka aranu ka harukaze no fukiage no hama ni nami ya tatsuran | In the morning haze Are they blossom, or are they not? With a breeze in springtime Blowing up Fukiage beach Have the waves arisen? |
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I stayed by the beach at Fukiage. The moon was fair in the extreme, and the beach was a place where it was said that heavenly beings would often descend to and make merry. Truly, it was a fair place, indeed! That night, the sky was heart-rendingly moving, and as the night wore on, the breeze, brushing fallen frost from the ducks’ wing-feathers, brought loneliness to the skies, while the distant cries of cranes, calling for their comrades, was so moving, my words fail to express it. Birds other than these flocked, calling from the sandbars and even my insensitive and unfeeling self was moved beyond measure.
をとめごが天の羽衣ひきつれてむべもふけ井の浦におるらん
| otomego ga ama no hagoromo hikitsurete mube mo fukehi no ura ni oruran | Heaven’s maidens’ Feathered robes, Drawn up by The gusts at Fukehi Beach when they rest there. |

三熊野のうらのはまゆふいはずとも思ふ心の数をしらなん
| mikumano no ura no hamayū iwazu tomo omou kokoro no kazu o shiranan | At fair Kumano, Lilies on the beach Say nothing, yet The yearnings in my heart for you In number I would have you know![1] |
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[1] An allusive variation on: [One of] Four poems by Hitomaro, Lord Kakinomoto. み熊野の浦の濱木綿百重なす心は思へど直に逢はぬかも mikumano no / ura no hamayū / momoe nasu / kokoro wa omoedo / tada ni awanu kamo ‘At fair Kumano / Lilies on the beach / A hundred deep / My heart’s yearning, but / Never will we meet.’ (MYS IV: 496)