Songs
I recollect, treading along
discarded paths,
the lights dissolved in grass.
心境
廢れし路をさまよへば
光は草に消え行けり
心境
廢れし路をさまよへば
光は草に消え行けり
けものめきたる欲念に
怯ぢしは何時の夢ならむ
臘梅
臘梅の匀を知つてゐますか？
あの冷やかにしみ透る匀を。
わたしは――実に妙ですね、――
あの臘梅の匀さへかげば
あなたの黑子を思ひ出すのです。
STATE OF MIND
I recollect, treading along
discarded paths,
the lights dissolved in grass.
My trepidation, my desire
to appear as a beast—
when was it that I had this
dream?
FRAGRANT WINTERSWEETS
Do you remember the ice-
permeated scents
of fragrant wintersweets?
Strangely, I cannot smell
them anymore without
thinking of your beauty
marks.
Ryūnosuke Akutagawa (1892–1927), born in Tokyo, Japan, was the author of more than three-hundred fifty works of fiction and nonfiction. Japan’s premier literary award for emerging writers, the Akutagawa Prize, is named after him.
