b'It was with awebr That I beheldbr Fresh leaves, green leaves, br Bright in the sun'br bbr In his perfectly crafted haiku poems, Basho described the natural world with great simplicity and delicacy of feeling. When he composed iThe Narrow Road to the Deep Northi, he was an ardent student of Zen Buddhism, setting off on a series of travels designed to strip away the trappings of the material world and bring spiritual enlightenment. He wrote of the seasons changin, of the smells of the rain, the brightness of the moon, and beauty of the waterfall, through which he sense mysteries of the universe. There s seventeenth-century travel writing not only chronicle Basho's perilous journeys through Japan, but they also capture his vision of eternity in the transient world around him. br In his lucid translation Nobuyuki Yuasa captures the Lyrical qualities of Basho's poetry and prose by using the natural rhythms and language of the contemporary speech. IN his introduction, he examines the devel