by Richard Aldington

One frosty night when the guns were still

I leaned against the trench

Making for myself hokku

of the moon and flowers and of the snow.

From The Complete Poems of Richard Aldington (London: Allan Wingate, 1948), page 86. I found this poem quoted in Donald Keene’s Japanese Literature: An Introduction for Western Readers (New York: Grove, 1955), page 46. I have not been able to locate Aldington’s book, so I do not know if this is an excerpt from a longer poem, an entire poem by itself, or if the poem has a title. Richard Aldington began his poetry career as an Imagist, was close friends with Ezra Pound, and was married to the poet Hilda Doolittle, better known as H.D. He lived from 1892 to 1962, and fought in World War I in 1916.