In this scroll Koetsu brushed twelve love poems over gold and silver woodblock-printed designs of ivy, mehishiba (a type of crabgrass), and wisteria. Butterflies were printed in gold and silver in random patterns over the length of the reverse of the scroll. This handscroll was painstakingly restored and remounted in the 1980s because of fire damage that it suffered.
Out on Udo Beach
Do you fancy you'll beach me
For good and all?
Watch the waves come rolling in:
Ceaseless the nights I desire!
Shinkokin wakashü 1051
Author unknown
Down the Eastern Road,
Way out at the end you find
Hitachi sashes
Buckling sweethearts at the fair-
And here all I beg is a slipknot!
Shinkokin wakashü 1052
Author unknown
A muddy inlet-
Clearly it will be difficult
To settle on me;
Still, I hope dark waters show
Some glimmer of my true face.
Shinkokin wakashü 1053
Author unknown