HAPPY POVERTY
Wafted into my room, the scent of the flowers of the plum-tree
Changes my broken window into a source of delight.
AUTUMN FANCIES
(1) Faded the clover now;—sere and withered the grasses:
What dreams the matsumushi[[3]] in the desolate autumn-fields?
(2) Strangely sad, I thought, sounded the bell of evening;—
Haply that tone proclaimed the night in which autumn dies!
(3) Viewing this autumn-moon, I dream of my native village
Under the same soft light,—and the shadows about my home.
[3] A musical cricket—calyptotryphus marmoratus.
IN TIME OF GRIEF, HEARING A SÉMI (CICADA)
Only “I,” “I,”—the cry of the foolish semi!
Any one knows that the world is void as its cast-off shell.
ON THE CAST-OFF SHELL OF A SÉMI