Munemitsu Mutsu · Kishu
Person
A Kishu-born figure connected with Sakamoto Ryoma in the Bakumatsu, later a major diplomat of the Meiji era. His poems carry the restlessness of a young activist and the later gaze of a man who would read Japan through the world.
Translation
For fifteen years I have recited morning and night, drifting like a wrecked ship; someday I want wings vast enough to clear the clouds and fly to the highest sky.
Reading
The poem shows young Mutsu's ambition and drifting condition. It reads as an unformed great aspiration before his contact with Ryoma and others. Read together with Munemitsu Mutsu, the poem is not only a matter of literal meaning; it shows movement and solitude at the edge of an age. With the figure in mind, what remains after reading is resolve, solitude, and the beauty that often belongs to the defeated side.
Background
Said to have been written when the young Mutsu Munemitsu was leaving his home province. It seems to anticipate the later flight of the diplomat he would become. A Kishu-born figure connected with Sakamoto Ryoma in the Bakumatsu, later a major diplomat of the Meiji era. The words carry the inner pressure of someone caught in Bakumatsu politics, war, execution, exile, or the losses that followed the Restoration. Even where the transmission is uncertain, they quietly preserve the pain of the age.
Source / Transmission Wording and readings may differ by transmission; this page treats the text as one circulated form.
