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A Hundred Verses from Old Japan (The Hyakunin-isshu), tr. by William N. Porter, [1909], at sacred-texts.com
FROM pain and sorrow all around
There 's no escape, I fear;
To mountain wilds should I retreat,
There also I should hear
The cry of hunted deer.
Toshi-nari was a celebrated poet and nobleman in the reign of the Emperor Gotoba. He, however, gave up his position at Court and entered the church in the year 1176. He was the father of the writers of verses Nos. 94 and 97, and died in the year 1204, at the age of ninety-one.
