Oh, How cool —
The sound of the bell
That leaves the bell itself.

From Yone Noguchi's book Japanese Hokkus for Haiku Bones

Slow passing days
Gathered, gathering, —
Alas, past far-away, distant!

From Yone Noguchi's book Japanese Hokkus for Haiku Bones

Lying ill on journey,
Ah, my dream
Run about the ruin of fields.

From Yone Noguchi's book Japanese Hokkus for Haiku Bones

Ah, how sublime. —
The green leaves, the young leaves.
In the light of the sun!

From Yone Noguchi's book Japanese Hokkus for Haiku Bones

To-day, at last to-day,
I grew to wish to raise
The chrysanthemum flowers.

From Yone Noguchi's book Japanese Hokkus for Haiku Bones

Like a cobweb hung upon the tree,
A prey to wind and sunlight!
Who will say that we are safe and strong?

From Yone Noguchi's book Japanese Hokkus for Haiku Bones

The maple leaves on the mountain top would
wait for a king's train to pass once more,
Why will my life wait for my own song?

From Yone Noguchi's book Japanese Hokkus for Haiku Bones

The fickle waves of a strand do drench my
sleeves with sprays:
My songs cry only to make the stars sing.

From Yone Noguchi's book Japanese Hokkus for Haiku Bones

I row across the expanse of sea,
And the far-away sky, —
I row across the white billows of pain.

From Yone Noguchi's book Japanese Hokkus for Haiku Bones

It is too late to hear a nightingale?
Tut, tut, tut, . . . some bird sings,-
That's quite enough, my friend.

From Yone Noguchi's book Japanese Hokkus for Haiku Bones

Speak not again, Voice!
The silence washes off sins:
Come not again, Light!

From Yone Noguchi's book Japanese Hokkus for Haiku Bones

This way? or that way?
Where's the very street to Heaven?
What webs of streets!

From Yone Noguchi's book Japanese Hokkus for Haiku Bones

Fallen leaves! Nay, spirits?
Shall I go downward with thee
By a stream of fate?

From Yone Noguchi's book Japanese Hokkus for Haiku Bones

Full of faults, you say.
What beauty in repentance!
Tears, songs . . . thus life flows

From Yone Noguchi's book Japanese Hokkus for Haiku Bones

To become tree-man,
Oh, songs given back by the winds !
What joy of no-man.

From Yone Noguchi's book Japanese Hokkus for Haiku Bones

"Ghost of my soul," I shout,
"That cries only to curse me?"
Tip, tip, tip . . . thus the rain falls.

From Yone Noguchi's book Japanese Hokkus for Haiku Bones

But the march to life . . .
Break song to sing the new song !
Clouds leap, flowers bloom.

From Yone Noguchi's book Japanese Hokkus for Haiku Bones

The silence-leaves fallen from Life,
Older than dream or pain, —
Are they my passing ghost?

From Yone Noguchi's book Japanese Hokkus for Haiku Bones

Song of sea in rain,
Voice of the sky, earth and men!
List, song of my heart.

From Yone Noguchi's book Japanese Hokkus for Haiku Bones

A breeze forgotten by life,
Steps from thought to thought.
Oh, peace gained by hushed prayer!

From Yone Noguchi's book Japanese Hokkus for Haiku Bones

Bits of song . . . what else?
I, a rider of the stream.
Lone between the clouds.

From Yone Noguchi's book Japanese Hokkus for Haiku Bones

Are the fallen stars
Returning up the sky?-
The dews on the grass.

From Yone Noguchi's book Japanese Hokkus for Haiku Bones

I, a moth with no sense of the day,
Dare not fly,
Lest the silence be marred.

From Yone Noguchi's book Japanese Hokkus for Haiku Bones

Lord, how long hast thou
To spin the love-threads for dress ?-
The love-threads of rain.

From Yone Noguchi's book Japanese Hokkus for Haiku Bones

Oh, my own self in the barge
Laden with the memory of mists,
Gliding down by the life-grey stream.

From Yone Noguchi's book Japanese Hokkus for Haiku Bones

Oh, canst thou hear
The love talk of the man-star
With the star- woman?

From Yone Noguchi's book Japanese Hokkus for Haiku Bones

Let day pass,
Let night break
So the frogs sing morning and eve.

From Yone Noguchi's book Japanese Hokkus for Haiku Bones

Leaves blown,
Birds flown away.
I wander in and out the Hall of Autumn.

From Yone Noguchi's book Japanese Hokkus for Haiku Bones

Is it a fallen leaf?
That's my soul sailing on
The silence of Life.

From Yone Noguchi's book Japanese Hokkus for Haiku Bones

Saying something to the rice-plant leaves.
I am knocking at the door of Life, —
Is nobody in?

From Yone Noguchi's book Japanese Hokkus for Haiku Bones

At eve,
By a grass-made hut,
The winds pass on.

From Yone Noguchi's book Japanese Hokkus for Haiku Bones

The far-away sky,
The white billow in distance,
And the expanse of Life and World

From Yone Noguchi's book Japanese Hokkus for Haiku Bones

Lift anchor, life-ship!
Love's red seas, white fancy-birds,
Behold! and the blue.

From Yone Noguchi's book Japanese Hokkus for Haiku Bones

Some one at my door?
Go away, go, — go away!
Good night, sir or madam.

From Yone Noguchi's book Japanese Hokkus for Haiku Bones

My memory-bird,
To the night's rhythm, soft and sad.-
Ghost, art thou not tired?

From Yone Noguchi's book Japanese Hokkus for Haiku Bones

What is life? A voice,
A thought, a light on the dark,-
Lo, crow in the sky.

From Yone Noguchi's book Japanese Hokkus for Haiku Bones

Sudden pain of earth
I hear in the fallen leaf.
"Life's autumn," I cry.

From Yone Noguchi's book Japanese Hokkus for Haiku Bones

The seas sleep. The stars —
They are where? Oh my loneliness!
I gaze on my heart.

From Yone Noguchi's book Japanese Hokkus for Haiku Bones

A temple by the clouds.
Down march the days and the pains.
What hear I, brothers?

From Yone Noguchi's book Japanese Hokkus for Haiku Bones

Let me turn over,
Pray, go away,
Oh, my cricket!

From Yone Noguchi's book Japanese Hokkus for Haiku Bones

Suppose the stars
Fall and break? — Do they ever sound
Like my own love song?

From Yone Noguchi's book Japanese Hokkus for Haiku Bones

A cloud of flowers!
Is it the bell of Uyeno
Or that of Asakusa?

From Yone Noguchi's book Japanese Hokkus for Haiku Bones

My Love's lengthened hair
Swings o'er me from Heaven's gate:
Lo, Evening's shadow!

From Yone Noguchi's book Japanese Hokkus for Haiku Bones

Shall I knock
At Miidera Temple's gate?
Ah, moon of to-night!

From Yone Noguchi's book Japanese Hokkus for Haiku Bones

On a withered twig, .
Lo, the crow is sitting there,
Oh, this Autumn eve!

For Haiku Bones from Yone Noguchi's book Japanese Hokku

Autumn's full moon:
Lo, the shadows of a pine tree
Upon the mats!

For Haiku Bones from Yone Noguchi's book Japanese Hokku