Matsuo Basho's Famous Haiku Poems
Matsuo Basho (1644-1694) made about 1000
haiku poems through the lifetime, traveling
around Japan.
His writing “The Narrow Road to the Deep
North” is the most famous haiku collection in
Japan.
Among the haiku poems, I would like to introduce
you the 10 famous examples of his “Sabi” works
including “old pond and frog”, “cicada” and his
death poem .
The haiku poems are shown in original Japanese
5-7-7 syllables, and translated to English three
Portrait of Matsuo Basho from
“Hokusai Manga”, by Katsushika Hokusai lines style to realize the meaning.
1 草の戸も Kusa no to mo/ A owner of the old thatched hut *Basho gave his house another before going on
Sumikawaru yo zo/ Is also changed to another a journey. Apparently it seems that the new
住替る代ぞ Hina no ie It’s the Doll’s Festival. residents were a family with girls.
ひなの家
2 行春や Yuku haru ya/ Tori Spring is passing. * “Spring is passing” often means an eternal
naki uwo no/ Me wa The birds cry, and the fishes’ parting. The birds and the fishes mean Basho
鳥啼き魚の namida eyes are and his friends.
目は泪 With tears.
3 夏草や 兵どもが Natsu kusa ya/ The summer grasses. *Hiraizumi prospered as the independent
Tsuwamono domo All that remains country from Japan centered on Kyoto.
夢の跡 ga/ Yume no ato Of warriors’ dreams. However in the late Heian Period, the
Kamakura government destroyed it.
4 五月雨の Samidare no/ The early summer rain *Hikari-do: Konjikido. One of the hall of
Furinokosite ya/ Fall and fall yet Chusonji, in Hiraizumi.
降のこしてや 光堂 Hikari-do Leave untouched Hikari-do
Hall.
5 閑けさや Shizukesa ya/ Iwa ni Oh, tranquility! Translated by Helen Craig Mccullough
shimiiru/ Semi no Penetrating the very rock,
岩にしみいる koe A cicada’s voice. *The haiku poem at Risshakuji Temple,
蝉の声 Yamagata Prefecture.
6 五月雨を Samidare wo/ The rains of summer join
Atsumete Hayashi/ together.
あつめてはやし Mogamigawa How swift it is
最上川 Mogami River.
7 古池や Furuike ya/ Kawazu The old pond *What is the meaning of this frog and pond
tobikomu/ Mizu no A frog leaps in. haiku poem?
蛙飛び込む oto Sound of the water.
水の音
8 物いへば 唇寒し Mono ie ba/ When you say something, *The haiku poem expresses about that people
Kuchibiru samushi/ The lip feel cold. told a bad mouth about someone. It is a rare
秋の風 Aki no kaze The Autumn wind. poetry with self-discipline by Basho.
9 粽結ふ Chimaki yu/ Katate While rolling the Chimaki *Chimaki: A rice dumpling wrapped in
ni hasamu/ Hitai dumpling, bamboo leaves. Eating at Boys’ Festival
片手にはさむ 額髪 gami The other hand hold,
Her bangs.
10 旅に病んで Tabi ni yande/ Sicking on journey, *The last haiku poems of Matsuo Basho. As in
Yume wa kareno My dream run about the preface of Oku-no Homichi, it is a farewell
夢は枯野を wo/ Kake meguru A desolate field. poem of him who was obsessed by a journey.
かけ廻る
SEA-FEVER
By John Masefield
I must go down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky,
And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by;
And the wheel’s kick and the wind’s song and the white sail’s shaking,
And a grey mist on the sea’s face, and a grey dawn breaking.
I must go down to the seas again, for the call of the running tide
Is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied;
And all I ask is a windy day with the white clouds flying,
And the flung spray and the blown spume, and the sea-gulls crying.
I must go down to the seas again, to the vagrant gypsy life,
To the gull’s way and the whale’s way where the wind’s like a whetted knife;
And all I ask is a merry yarn from a laughing fellow-rover,
And quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long trick’s over.
CONSTANTLY RISKING ABSURDITY (#15)
By Lawrence Ferlinghetti
Constantly risking absurdity
and death
whenever he performs
above the heads
of his audience
the poet like an acrobat
climbs on rime
to a high wire of his own making
and balancing on eyebeams
above a sea of faces
paces his way
to the other side of day
performing entrechats
and sleight-of-foot tricks
and other high theatrics
and all without mistaking
any thing
for what it may not be
For he's the super realist
who must perforce perceive
taut truth
before the taking of each stance or step
in his supposed advance
toward that still higher perch
where Beauty stands and waits
with gravity
to start her death-defying leap
And he
a little charleychaplin man
who may or may not catch
her fair eternal form
spreadeagled in the empty air
of existence
LIFE DOESN'T FRIGHTEN ME
By Maya Angelou
Shadows on the wall All alone at night
Noises down the hall Life doesn't frighten me at all.
Life doesn't frighten me at all
Panthers in the park
Bad dogs barking loud Strangers in the dark
Big ghosts in a cloud No, they don't frighten me at all.
Life doesn't frighten me at all
That new classroom where
Mean old Mother Goose Boys all pull my hair
Lions on the loose (Kissy little girls
They don't frighten me at all With their hair in curls)
They don't frighten me at all.
Dragons breathing flame
On my counterpane Don't show me frogs and snakes
That doesn't frighten me at all. And listen for my scream,
If I'm afraid at all
I go boo It's only in my dreams.
Make them shoo
I make fun I've got a magic charm
Way they run That I keep up my sleeve
I won't cry I can walk the ocean floor
So they fly And never have to breathe.
I just smile
They go wild Life doesn't frighten me at all
Not at all
Life doesn't frighten me at all. Not at all.
Tough guys fight Life doesn't frighten me at all.
A BIRD, CAME DOWN THE WALK
By Emily Dickinson
A Bird, came down the Walk -
He did not know I saw -
He bit an Angle Worm in halves
And ate the fellow, raw,
And then, he drank a Dew
From a convenient Grass -
And then hopped sidewise to the Wall
To let a Beetle pass -
He glanced with rapid eyes,
That hurried all abroad -
They looked like frightened Beads, I thought,
He stirred his Velvet Head. -
Like one in danger, Cautious,
I offered him a Crumb,
And he unrolled his feathers,
And rowed him softer Home -
Than Oars divide the Ocean,
Too silver for a seam,
Or Butterflies, off Banks of Noon,
Leap, plashless as they swim.
THERE IS NO WORD FOR GOODBYE
By Mary TallMountain
Sokoya, I said, looking through
the net of wrinkles into
wise black pools
of her eyes.
What do you say in Athabascan
when you leave each other?
What is the word
for goodbye?
A shade of feeling rippled
the wind-tanned skin.
Ah, nothing, she said,
watching the river flash.
She looked at me close.
We just say, Tlaa. That means,
See you.
We never leave each other.
When does your mouth
say goodbye to your heart?
She touched me light
as a bluebell.
You forget when you leave us;
you're so small then.
We don't use that word.
We always think you're coming back, I
but if you don't,
we'll see you some place else.
You understand.
There is no word for goodbye.
Sokoya: Aunt (mother's sister)
Tlaa: See you
IN THE INNER CITY
By Lucille Clifton
in the inner city
or
like we call it
home
we think a lot about uptown
and the silent nights
and the houses straight as
dead men
and the pastel lights
and we hang on to our no place
happy to be alive
and in the inner city
or
like we call it
home
AS INTO THE GARDEN ELIZABETH RAN
By A. E. Housman
As into the garden Elizabeth ran,
Pursued by the just indignation of Ann,
she trod on an object that lay in her road,
She trod on an object that looked like a toad.
It looked like a toad, and it looked so because
A toad was the actual object it was;
And after supporting Elizabeth's tread
It looked like a toad that was visibly dead.
Elizabeth, leaving her footprint behind,
Continued her flight on the wings of the wind,
And Ann in her anger was heard to arrive
At the toad that was not any longer alive.
She was heard to arrive, for the firmament rang
With the sound of a scream and the noise of a bang,
As her breath on the breezes she broadly bestowed
And fainted away on Elizabeth's toad.
Elizabeth, saved by the soul of her boot,
Escaped her insensible sister's pursuit;
And if ever hereafter she irritates Ann,
She will tread on a toad if she possibly can.
COUNTING-OUT RHYME
by Edna St. Vincent
Silver bark of beech, and sallow
Bark of yellow birch and yellow
Twig of willow.
Stripe of green in moosewood maple,
Colour seen in leaf of apple,
Bark of popple.
Wood of popple pale as moonbeam,
Wood of oak for yoke and barn-beam,
Wood of hornbeam.
Silver bark of beech, and hollow
Stem of elder, tall and yellow
Twig of willow.
PREPARATION
by Robert Francis
Last fall I saw the farmer
follow the plow that dug the long dark furrows
Between the hillslope and the hollow.
All winter long the land lay fallow.
The woodchuck slept within his burrow
And heard no hound or farm boy's hallow.
Tonight the rain drives its dark arrows
Deep in the soil, down to its marrow.
The arows of the sun tomorrow.
MUSHROOMS
By Sylvia Plath
Overnight, very
Whitely, discreetly,
Very quietly
Our toes, our noses
Take hold on the loam,
Acquire the air.
Nobody sees us,
Stops us, betrays us;
The small grains make room.
Soft fists insist on
Heaving the needles,
The leafy bedding,
Even the paving.
Our hammers, our rams,
Earless and eyeless,
Perfectly voiceless,
Widen the crannies,
Shoulder through holes. We
Diet on water,
On crumbs of shadow,
Bland-mannered, asking
Little or nothing.
So many of us!
So many of us!
We are shelves, we are
Tables, we are meek,
We are edible,
Nudgers and shovers
In spite of ourselves.
Our kind multiplies:
We shall by morning
Inherit the earth.
Our foot's in the door.
ON THE GRASSHOPPER AND CRICKET
By John Keats
The poetry of earth is never dead:
When all the birds are faint with the hot sun,
And hide in cooling trees, a voice will run
From hedge to hedge about the new-mown mead;
That is the Grasshopper’s—he takes the lead
In summer luxury,—he has never done
With his delights; for when tired out with fun
He rests at ease beneath some pleasant weed.
The poetry of earth is ceasing never:
On a lone winter evening, when the frost
Has wrought a silence, from the stove there shrills
The Cricket’s song, in warmth increasing ever,
And seems to one in drowsiness half lost,
The Grasshopper’s among some grassy hills.
STOPPING BY WOODS ON A SNOWY EVENING
By Robert Frost
Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.
My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.
He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound’s the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.
The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.
WHEN ICICLES HANG BY THE WALL
William Shakespeare
When icicles hang by the wall,
And Dick the shepherd blows his nail,
And Tom bears logs into the hall,
And milk comes frozen home in pail,
When blood is nipped, and ways be foul,
Then nightly sings the staring owl,
To-whoo;
To-whit, to-whoo, a merry note,
While greasy Joan doth keel the pot.
When all aloud the wind doth blow,
And coughing drowns the parson’s saw,
And birds sit brooding in the snow,
And Marian’s nose looks red and raw,
When roasted crabs hiss in the bowl,
Then nightly sings the staring owl,
To-whoo;
To-whit, to-whoo, a merry note,
While greasy Joan doth keel the pot.
WILLOW AND GINKGO
by Eve Merriam
The willow is like an etching,
Fine-lined against the sky.
Then ginkgo is like a crude sketch,
Hardly worthy to be signed.
The willow’s music is like a soprano,
Delicate and thin.
The ginkgo’s tune is like a chorus
With everyone joining in.
The willow is sleek as a velvet-nosed calf,
The ginkgo is leathery as an old bull.
The willow’s branches are like silken thread;
The ginkgo’s like stubby rough wool.
The willow is like a nymph with streaming hair;
Wherever it grows, there is green and gold and fair.
The willow dips to the water,
Protected and precious, like the king’s favorite daughter.
The ginkgo forces its way through gray concrete;
Like a city child, it grows up in the street.
Thrust against the metal sky,
Somehow it survives and even thrives.
My eyes feast upon the willow,
But my heart goes to the ginkgo.
MAMA IS A SUNRISE
by Evelyn Tooley Hunt
When she comes slip-footing through the door.
She kindles us
Like lump coal lighted,
and we wake up glowing.
She puts a spark even in papa’s eyes
and turns out all our darkness.
When she comes sweet-talking in the room,
She warms us
Like grits and gravy,
And we rise up shining.
Even at night-time Mama is a sunrise
That promises tomorrow and tomorrow.
