千里に旅立て、路粮を包まず「三更月下無何に入」
と云けむ昔の人の杖にすがりて、
貞亨甲子秋八月、江上の破屋を出づる程、
風の声そぞろ寒気也。
野ざらしを心に風のしむ身かな
秋十年却て江戸を指故郷
Without packing provisions for my thousand-league journey, I drew support from the words of the ancient sage who said, "Beneath the light of the moon at midnight, entering into a condition of neither having nor lacking anything..." and in the Eighth Month, in the autumn of the first year of the Jôkyô period, when I left my riverside home, the sound of the restless wind had a chilly feeling.
bleached bones in a field
and the piercing wind
in my heart
already I have passed
ten autumns in Edo
it's become my hometown
The first line alludes to a passage in Zhuangzi which notes that travelers can only start their packing three months in advance. The "ancient sage" is a Chinese Zen cleric called Yanxi Guangwen 偃溪廣聞 (1189～1263).
