Page:Anthology of Japanese Literature.pdf/440
Poetry and Prose in Chinese
Longing to attack the southern barbarians
[Directed against the Spanish and Portuguese soldiers and missionaries, who had arrived in Japan from the south.]
False religions delude the land with a ceaseless clamor.
I would strike the barbarian tribes, but the time comes not.
When will the great roc rise and southward soar?
Long have I waited the wind of his ten-thousand-mile wings.
Date Masamune (1567–1636)
The rainy season
How many days of spring rain since I have seen the sun?
Yet I delight in the new pools that shine before my porch.
Last year the burning drought continued through the fall.
Even in river towns I heard the water-seller’s cry.
Kan Sazan (1748–1827)
Dutch ships (1818)
In Nagasaki Bay, where sky and sea meet to the west,
At heaven’s edge a little dot appears.
The cannon of the lookout tower sounds once;
In twenty-five watch stations, bows are bared.
Through the streets on all sides the cry breaks forth:
“The redhaired Westerners are coming!”