Haru ya toki hana ya osoki to kikiwakamu
uguisu dani mo nakazu mo aru kana

English Translation

Is it spring, I ask,
or are the flowers too slow to come?
I would know by hearing—
yet even the bush warbler
does not sing at all.

Meaning

Though it is spring, I would ask whether spring has come too soon or the flowers are too slow to bloom; I would judge by hearing, yet even the bush warbler does not sing at all.

Commentary

Spring Songs, Book One.
Composed at the beginning of spring.

It is a poem that sings of the longing for flowers and the bush warbler.
Spring is in name only, and there is nothing in the scene that makes one feel spring; a sense of poetic feeling can be seen.

The bush warbler is a bird that heralds the coming of spring.

Author

Fujiwara no Kotomichi

Source

Kokin Wakashu

Other

Though I stand here in the light of spring’s own sun, still upon my head the snow falls down, and this is wretched to me.
When haze arises, and buds on the trees are spring, if the snow should fall, even this village with no flowers has flowers falling down.
People say, “spring has come,” yet, unless the bush warbler sings, I think it has not— so long as it does not sing, spring is not yet here.
In the valley wind, between gaps where ice melts, from each small opening waves come flowing out—are these spring’s very first flowers?

Haru ya toki hana ya osoki to kikiwakamu uguisu dani mo nakazu mo aru kana

Haru ya toki hana ya osoki to kikiwakamu
uguisu dani mo nakazu mo aru kana