[_Oh, ferryman, make speed across the stream!--my lord is not
one who can come and go twice in a year!_]

Aki kazé no
Fukinishi hi yori,
Amanogawa
Kawasé ni dédachi;--
Matsu to tsugé koso!

[_On the very day that the autumn-wind began to blow, I set
out for the shallows of the River of Heaven;--I pray you, tell
my lord that I am waiting here still!_]

Tanabata no
Funanori surashi,--
Maso-kagami,
Kiyoki tsuki-yo ni
Kumo tachi-wataru.

[_Methinks Tanabata must be coming in her boat; for a cloud is
even now passing across the clear face of the moon._[25]]

[Footnote 25: Composed by the famous poet [=O]tomo no Sukuné
Yakamochi, while gazing at the Milky Way, on the seventh night of
the seventh month of the tenth year of Tampy[=o] (A.D. 738). The
pillow-word in the third line (_maso-kagami_) is untranslatable.]

--And yet it has been gravely asserted that the old Japanese poets
could find no beauty in starry skies!...