Page:The Spirit of Japanese Poetry (Noguchi).djvu/119

Rh To gaze upon the moon Is to be sad in a thousand ways, Though all the Autumn Is not meant to be my own self's."

'Tis the Spring day With lovely far-away light. Why must the flowers fall With hearts unquiet?"

Some commentator says that this Uta poem is the best among all the Uta poems ever written in Japan.

Alas, my face betrayed The secret of my love. All men ask me why I am so sad."

That I love thee Is known already. Ah, me! I had been thinking that No one would know it."

This Uta was written, it is said, on the 2nd of Tentoku (957), when the Emperor Reizei gathered