Had I not known
that I was dead
already
I would have mourned
the loss of my life.
From: Hoffmann, Yoel (ed. and transl.), Japanese Death Poems: Written by Zen Monks and Haiku Poets on the Verge of Death, 1998, Tuttle Publishing: Tokyo; Turland, Vermont; Singapore, p. 52.
(https://books.google.com.au/books?id=4XdzBgAAQBAJ)
Date: 1486 (original in Japanese); 1986 (translation in English)
By: Ōta Dōkan Sukenaga (1432-1486)
Translated by: Yoel Hoffmann (1937- )
From Troubles of The World 