Seasonal poetry for your enjoyment

Hello friends... Today's the first day I really felt it was autumn here. Up till now it's either been relatively temperate or rainy. Today it was cool, crisp, and the trees were simply beautiful--I'm still struck by it even though I've already seen one autumn here.

Anyway, I thought I'd share with you some topical poems I like. The first three are Japanese waka, the first two from the Hyakunin Isshu ("100 leaves") collection, and the third from the Kokinshu ("Collection of Ancients and Moderns").

Following this are two poems by two of Germany's greatest lyrical poets, Hebbel and Rilke. Not the greatest of translations, but what the hell...

Finally, I thought I'd throw in that great Shakespeare sonnet we all read in high school (73)....

Enjoy!

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Fujiwara no Masatsune

From Mount Yoshino
Blows a chill, autumnal wind.
In the deepening night
The ancient village shivers:
Sounds of beating cloth I hear.

Noin

By the wind storm's blast
From Mimuro's mountain slopes
Maples leaves are torn,
Which turn Tatsuta River
Into a rich brocade.

Anonymous

In the autumn fields
mingled with the pampas grass
flowers are blooming
should my love too, spring forth
or shall we never meet?

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Friedrich Hebbel: Autumn Scene

This is a fall day like I never saw!
The air is still, almost of breathing free,
but here and there are falling, without flaw,
the finest-looking fruits from every tree.

Do not disturb ripe nature's holy day!
This is a harvest that is all her own,
because, today, each fruit that breaks away
falls from a milder ray of sun alone.


Rainer Maria Rilke: Fall

The leaves are falling, falling as from far,
from wilting in the heavens' distant gardens:
They're falling to deny the summer's mirth.

And in the nights the heavy Earth
falls into solitude from star to star.

We all are falling. See my hand: it bends.
And look at others: It's in all their calling.

And yet there's One, who's holding all this falling
endlessly tender in His upturned hands...

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Sonnet 73

That time of year thou mayst in me behold
When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang
Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,
Bare ruin'd choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.
In me thou see'st the twilight of such day
As after sunset fadeth in the west,
Which by and by black night doth take away,
Death's second self, that seals up all in rest.
In me thou see'st the glowing of such fire
That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,
As the death-bed whereon it must expire,
Consum'd with that which it was nourish'd by.
This thou perceiv'st, which makes thy love more strong,
To love that well which thou must leave ere long.