Year-end Presentations of Waka Poems

Year-end Presentation of Five Waka Poems by His Majesty the Emperor

On the Visit to Holland

Having since our youth
Enjoyed united friendship,
Now with good memories
I come today to visit
The Queen of the Netherlands.

Visiting Sweden

When I visited
A home for the elderly,
There was among them
One who said in Japanese
"I once lived in your country"

A mourning Visit to my mother

The path that I have
Come and gone so many times,
I go now once more
In this late evening to see
My dear departed mother.

The Miyake Island Volcanic Eruptions

Leaving their island
Where volcanic ashes pile,
How will the people
Who are gone so far from home
Now pass this winter season?

At Nasu

I have come to look at
Asama-Fuuro* of
Kofukabori
Here where I know my father
Used to love to see them.

NoticeAsama-Fuuro : Geranium soboliferum

Year-end Presentation of Three Waka Poems by Her Majesty the Empress

By the coffin of Empress Kojun

This is the last time
In this living world of ours
That I can see Her;
How lovely is Her countenance
In the barque to eternity

A trail in the Grasses

The little ones there
Thrusting through the long grasses
Leave a trail behind
Like the track wild creatures make-
So dear are they, so tender.

Note:
Her Majesty composed this poem after watching the little Princesses Mako and Kako at play in the garden of the Palace Residence. The trail they left behind as they romped through the tall grasses, reminded her of the track left by the wild creatures, and she was filled with loving tenderness for them, so small and vulnerable.

On a journey in the Netherlands

The National Monument
To the War-dead stands
In summer's white night
Where quietly lie the flowers,
Both Yours and the protestors'

Note:
Following Their Majesties' laying of a floral wreath at the National Monument, a group of war victims came in procession, each bearing a single white chrysanthemum flower, and after placing them against the enclosure of the Monument, they went away. After Their Majesties had returned in the evening to the Royal Guesthouse, they viewed with deep emotion the Monument which could be seen from their window with the wreath His Majesty had placed during the day and, one step below, along with it, the chrysanthemums also that had been brought inside the enclosure in the afternoon, all now seeming as if afloat in the light of the summer's white night.