Songs of a Cowherd/Arise, Youth of Japan

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Songs of a Cowherd
by Itō Sachio, translated by Shio Sakanishi
4621285Songs of a CowherdShio SakanishiItō Sachio

 1904 

Arise, Youth of Japan

(On the eve of the Russo-Japanese War)

Oh the burnished sword
Handed down from the age of the gods!
The time has come to lay our hands
On this sword divine.

(On the eve of the declaration of war)

By the decree of my sovereign lord
I go, leaving my aged parents,
My wife and my children,
And will not turn me around
Even to gaze behind.

My child and my young wife
Pressing me on either side,
Come to see me off to war.
Though in my blood I weep,
My eyes are dry.