Yet another cool poem from my daughter’s TV show Nihongo de asobo on NHK. Although it’s a Japanese show, the poem is by Chinese poet Mèng Hàorán, who in Japanese is known as Mōkōnen (孟浩然). He was one of many famous poets during China’s Tang Dynasty:1
The poem is titled A Spring Morning (春暁):
春眠暁を覚えず shunmin akatsuki wo oboezu
処処に啼鳥と聞く sho sho ni teichō to kiku
夜来風雨の声 yarai fūu no koe
花落つること hana otsuru koto
知んぬ多少ぞ shinnu tashōzo
The translation, from the original Chinese, is as follows:
I awake light-hearted this morning of spring,
Everywhere round me the singing of birds –
But now I remember the night, the storm,
And I wonder how many blossoms were broken.
Also, here are other poems by Meng Haoran.
1 Which in turn had a huge, huge impact on Japanese culture, especially during the Nara and Heian Period. The court aristocracy of Kyoto was deeply influenced by trends in Tang Dynasty China, as was Buddhism at the time (and even beyond).