Some people give cards, some people give poems:
| Japanese | Romanization | Translation |
|---|---|---|
| 君がため | Kimi ga tame | For my lord’s sake |
| 春の野に出でて | Haru no no ni idete | I went out into the fields of spring |
| 若菜つむ | Wakana tsumu | to pick young greens |
| わが衣手に | Waga koromode ni | while on my robe-sleeves |
| 雪はふりつつ | Yuki wa furitsutsu | the snow kept falling and falling. |
The poem was composed by a young Kōkō Tennō (光孝天皇, 830 – 887), Emperor Kōkō in English, who picked some wild flowers and herbs and sent them to someone as a New Year’s greeting. The poem was included in the offering. Young greens were often eaten after the New Year, and the tradition still continues in Japan as the Nanakusa holiday on January 7th.
Being early in the year, that helps explains too why snow was falling on the young prince’s sleeves. New Year’s in Japan used to follow the lunar calendar, so it would often fall in late winter / early spring and is thus often written traditionally as geishun (迎春) too.
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