Melancholic Far Scenery

When it turns melancholy twilight,
The whole of Tokyo fills with laborers,
And the shadows of their fatigued hats
Fill the whole city,
And in the ward-district theareabouts and the ward-district hereabouts,
Dig over the stiff ground,
And what they discover they have dug up
Is a sooty foil-wrap of snuff tobacco.
It’s a shriveled up root-stalk of a fragrant-violet
Weighing almost five momme.
And they start off from farther down, around the Honjo-Fukagawa district,
And gradually start to encroach the whole city.
In the shadow of the angst-filled twilight,
A wilted heart is working the shovel and making it gleam.

-Sakutarō Hagiwara