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I'm reading a poem by Misuzu, 星とたんぽぽ。

I don't understand the grammar of this line:

昼のお星は眼にみえぬ。

This is my understanding:

  1. 昼のお星は　the subject: stars during the daytime
  2. 眼に　to the eye (why not 目?)
  3. みえぬ　I assume is a form of 見る - 見える (to be able to see) Is the ぬ form a 'childish' negative? Or an abbreviation of 〜ない？
craigmj
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    Related/duplicate: https://japanese.stackexchange.com/q/235 https://japanese.stackexchange.com/q/18548 https://japanese.stackexchange.com/q/9581 – Eddie Kal Apr 12 '21 at 17:37
  • ～ぬ following the -a stem for regular verbs, or the -e stem for verbs like 見える, is a negative. This is an ancient and Classical Japanese form of modern ～ない, and is also one of the conjugations of negative ～ず. See the links that Eddie Kal posted, those should answer your question about the word みえぬ. – Eiríkr Útlendi Apr 12 '21 at 21:30

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