VOX POPULI: Early spring fills us with regret at missing out on winter's charms | The Asahi Shimbun: Breaking News, Japan News and Analysis
Sosei (844-910), a “waka” poet and Buddhist priest who was one of the Thirty-Six Immortals of Poetry (Sanju-roku Kasen) of the Asuka, Nara and Heian periods (from 592 to 1185), penned a piece that may be paraphrased as: “The warbling of a nightingale is what I await most eagerly from the morning of New Year’s Day.”