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Only at night, the people say, is its voice heard, and most often upon the nights of great moons; and it chants while hovering high out of sight, wherefore a poet has sung of it thus: Hito koe wa. Tsuki ga naitaka Hototogisu! And another has written: Hototogisu Nakitsuru kata wo Nagamureba, Tada ariake no Tsuki zo nokoreru. The dweller in cities may pass a lifetime without hearing the hototogisu.
The sketchy nature of Japanese poetry, especially in this five-line stanza, may be illustrated further by two poems quoted by Prof. The first: Hototogisu Nakitsuru kata wo Nagamureba Tada ari-ake no Tsuki zo nokoreru is literally translated by Professor Chamberlain as follows: "When I gaze towards the place where the cuckoo has been singing, nought remains but the moon in the early dawn."
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