The glory of three generations was but a dozing dream. Paddies and wild fields have claimed the land where Hidehira's mansion stood, a league beyond the site of the great gate, amd only Mount Kinkeizan looks as it did in the past. My first act was to ascend to Takadachi. From there, I could see both the mighty Kitakami River, which flows down from Nanbu, and the Koromo River, which skirts Izumi Castle and empties into the larger stream below Takadachi. Yasuhira's castle, on the near side of the Koromo Barrier, seems to have guarded the Nanbu entrance against barbarian encroachments. There at Takadachi, Yoshitsune shut himself up with a chosen band of loyal men - yet their heroic deeds lasted only a moment, and nothing remains but evanescent clumps of grass.

The nation is destroyed; the mountains and rivers remain. Spring comes to the castle; the grasses are green.

Sitting on my sedge hat with those lines running through my head, I wept for a long time.

natsukusa ya	A dream of warriors
tsuwamonodomo ga	after dreaming is done,
yume no ato	the summer grasses.

unohana ni	Ah, the white hair;
kanefusa miyuru	vision of Kanefusa
shiragi ka na	in deutzia flowers
-- Sora	--Sora

The two halls of which we had heard so many impressive tales were open to visitors. The images of the three chieftains are preserved in the Sutra Hall, and in the Golden Hall there are the three coffins and the three sacred images. In the past, the Golden Hall's seven precious substances were scattered and lost; gales ravaged the magnificient jewel-studded doors, and the golden pillars rotted in the frosts and snows. But just as it seemed the whole building must collapse, leaving nothing but clumps of grass, new walls were put around it, and a roof was erected against the winds and rains. So it survives for a time, a memento of events that took place 1,000 years ago.

samidare no	Do the Fifth-Month rains
furinokoshite ya	stay away when they fall,
hikarido	sparing that Hall of Gold?