Classic Poem

The palace of Yoshino where our sovereign,
familiar with the eight corners, rules on high
is surrounded by layer on layer of green fences
and circled by a river of clear waves.
In spring, blossoms open and flourish,
when autumn comes, mists rise and trail.
Greater in number than these mountains,
uninterrupted as this river,
the courtiers of the hundred-acre palace
will come to this place.

ENVOYS

In Yoshino, on treetops in a Kisayama vale, a great many birds make a commotion as they
call

As the night deepens, black as leopard-flower seeds, on the clear river beach where
everlasting trees grow, plovers call ceaselessly