Kuniomi Hirano · 福岡藩

Original

わが胸の
燃ゆる思ひに
くらぶれば
煙はうすし
桜島山

Kuniomi Hirano's waka, "わが胸の燃ゆる思ひに". Read the original Japanese, modern translation, interpretation, and historical context as distinct parts of the poem.

Person

Fukuoka activist who aided Gessho, joined the Ikuno uprising, and was killed at Rokkaku prison.

Learn about Hirano Kuniomi

Translation

Beside the fire burning in my breast, even the smoke of Sakurajima seems faint.

Poetic Shape

Tanka compresses feeling into five short movements, traditionally heard as a 5-7-5-7-7 rhythm. Its force is in the turn from image to emotion, and in what the poem leaves unsaid.

Reading

The poem turns Sakurajima's smoke into a measure of inward heat.Its pivotal comparison makes the volcano appear weaker than the speaker's purpose, while leaving that purpose unstated and therefore charged with both resolve and danger.

Background

The verse is transmitted as a poem from Hirano's time in Kagoshima.In 1858 he assisted the monk Gessho's flight toward Satsuma and entered a network that included Saigo Takamori.Rather than treating the poem as a direct program for the later Ikuno uprising, it is read here as a meeting of observed volcanic smoke and the political urgency of that earlier journey.

Source / Transmission

Text and attribution checked through Japan's Collaborative Reference Database, which identifies an 1883 Hirano biography and the headnote linking it to his time in Kagoshima.