Of Old Japan
my life will seem to be that of a pilgrim, but it is not so. I am jotting down the happenings of several years. In the spring I went to Kurama Temple. It was a soft spring day, with mist trailing over the mountain-side. The mountain people brought tokoro [a kind of root] as the only food and I found it good. When I left there flowers were already gone.
In Gods-absent month I went again, and the mountain views along the way were more beautiful than before, the mountain-side brocaded with the autumn colours. The stream, rushing headlong, boiled up like molten metal and then shattered into crystals.
When I reached the monastery the maple leaves, wet with a shower, were brilliant beyond compare.
The pattern of the maple leaves in Autumn dyed with the rain—
Beautiful in the deep mountain!
After two years or so I went again to Ishiyama. It seemed to be raining, and I heard some one saying rain is disagreeable on a journey, but on opening the door I found the waning moon lighting even the depths of the ravine. What I thought rain was the stream rippling below the roots of the trees.
The sound of the mountain brook gives an illusion of rain drops,
Yet the calm of the waning moon shines over all.
The next time I went to Hasé Temple, my journey was not so solitary as before. Along the route various persons invited me to ceremonious dinners, and we made but slow progress. The autumn woods were beautiful at the Hahasono forest in Yamashiro. I
