tsuyu-no-tama
little beads of dew.11
Buson could also be serious and moving when he tried, as with the following, one of his most admired works.
Mi-ni-shimu ya
The piercing chill I feel:
bo-sai-no kushi
my dead wife's comb, in our bedroom,
neya ni fumu
under my heel . . .12
Buson clearly had less Zen about him than Basho, but his verses suited the temper of his age, and he strongly influenced both students and contemporaries, although not the next great Haiku master, Issa (1762-1826), who was a romantic provincial through and through, immune to the fancy phrasing of the sophisticated Buson school.