Diaries of Court Ladies
Before the Autumn ends
My sleeves will be all rotted with tears,
The slow rains cannot do more to them.
I am sad, but no one remarks it; the leaves of trees and plants change day by day and so affection in him. In anticipation I feel the dreariness of the long winter rains; the leaves are pitifully teased by the winds; the drops on the leaves which may vanish at any moment—how like they are to my own life!
The sight of the leaves ever reminds me strangely of my own sadness. I cannot go within, but lie on the veranda; mayhap my end is not far off. I feel a vague anger that others are in comfortable sleep and cannot sympathize with me. Just now I heard the faint cry of a wild goose.[1] Others will not be touched by it, but I cannot endure the sound.
How many nights, alas!—
Sleepless—
Only the calls of the wild geese—
Let me not pass the time in this way. I will open the shutter and watch the moon declining towards the western horizon. It seems distant and serenely transparent. There is mist over the earth; together comes the sound of the morning bell and the crowing of cocks. There will be no moment like this in past or future. I feel that the colour of my sleeves is new to me.
Another with same thoughts
May be gazing at the pale morning moon
Of the Long-night month—
No sight is more sorrowful.
Now there comes a knocking at the gate. What does it mean? Who passes the night with thoughts like mine?
There is one of like mind with me
Musing upon the morning moon.
But no way to find him out!
- ↑ Wild geese visit Japan in Autumn and fly away northwards in the early spring. They are never alone, and their cries calling to each other make the solitary woman feel loneliness more keenly.
