Which poet wrote 'The world of dew is a world of dew, and yet, and yet...'?

Kobayashi Issa wrote “The world of dew is a world of dew, and yet, and yet...,” a haiku mourning the death of his young daughter, Satoyo.

The poem uses dew as a Buddhist image of impermanence: beautiful, fragile, and destined to vanish. Issa acknowledges that life is fleeting, yet the repeated “and yet” expresses the emotional resistance that follows personal grief. The line is often translated as “This dewdrop world—Is a dewdrop world, And yet, and yet...”

Issa was born Kobayashi Nobuyuki in 1763 and became one of Japan’s four great haiku masters, alongside Matsuo Bashō, Yosa Buson, and Masaoka Shiki. His poetry is known for intimate observation, plainspoken language, humor, and sympathy toward small creatures and ordinary people.

A common mix-up is attributing the poem to Bashō because both poets used Buddhist and nature imagery. The quoted haiku, however, is specifically associated with Issa’s grief after his daughter’s death and appears in accounts of his later life.