The glory of three generations of Fujiwaras is now but a brief-remembered dream. We reached the ruins of the Great Gate about two and a half miles before we came to the site of Hidehira's manor, where now there were only rice paddies and empty fields. Nothing remained but Kinkeizan, "Golden Pheasant Hill," which was once part of the landscaped gardens.

We climbed to the Takadachi, Yoshitsune's "High Fort," and saw below us the great Kitagami River which flows from Nambu Province. A tributary, the Koromo River, flows around Izumi Castle and joins the Kitagami here, below the fort. Yasuhira's stronghold stood beyond the Koromo Barrier in a strategic position to guard the entrance to Nambu Province and defend it against the Ainu tribesmen of the north.

But what a fleeting thing is military glory. The select band of loyal retainers who entrenched themselves here in this High Fort and fought so desperately - their glorious deeds lasted but a moment, and now this spot is overgrown with grass. How true the Chinese poet Tu Fu's words:

Even though a country is defeated,
Its mountains and rivers remain.
And o'er the castle ruins, when it is spring,
The grass will be green again.

We sat down upon our straw hats and wept, oblivious of the passing time.

A mound of summer grass:
Are warriors' heroic deeds
Only dreams that pass?

White snowflowers there
Remind me of brave old warrior
Kanefusa's hair.
-Sora

Chuzon-ji's two main halls, which I had heard about for so many years with wonder, were both open to public view. In the temple's Sutra Hall were the statues of the three great frontier generals, and in the Hall of Light were enshrined their coffins and the Buddhist images sacred to their spirits.

The Hall of Light's enamel decoration would have been scattered long ago and lost - the gem-studded doors shattered by the winds, the gold leaf on the pillars decayed by frost and snow, and the hall itself reduced to a pile of rubble in an empty field of grass - had it not been encased by four new walls and covered over with roof tiles to protect the building from the elements. Thus, it will probably stand for a long time as a memorial of a thousand years ago.

All June's rainy days
Have left untouched the Hall of Light
In beauty still ablaze.