Winter poem from the Shin chokusen wakashu (New Imperial Commission of Japanese Poems)

Emperor Go-Mizunoo was the third son of Emperor Go-Yozei (1571-1617) and became the 108th emperor of Japan (in the traditional count). Go-Mizunoo reigned from 1611 through 1629, when he abdicated in favor of his five-year-old daughter. For the next fifty-one years he dominated the court from retirement and built the Shugakuin Detached Palace in northeastern Kyoto. An amateur scholar, he was also a notable poet.

The winter poem by Hyobukyo Narizane (1191-1232) is from the thirteenth-century Shin chokusen wakashu, vol. 6, winter poem section, and reads:

Sayuru yo wa furuya arare no tamakushige
Mimuro no yama no akegata no sora