Where is the crimson
glowing in beauty?
White snow
seems to have fallen
bending the branches low.

Meaning

Where is the crimson said to glow in beauty? It appears as though white snow has fallen, bending the branches low.

Commentary

Episode Eighteen: "In crimson glow"

There was a woman of somewhat affected taste in elegance, and near her lived a man.
The woman was skilled in composing poetry, and when the white chrysanthemums had already passed their prime, she plucked some and sent them to the man with this poem.

Having heard rumors of the man’s amorous reputation, she was curious.
In the poem she provokes him, suggesting, "I have heard you are a man of color, yet from what I see, I perceive no color at all."

Source

Ise Monogatari

Other

They call it faithless, by name they so proclaim it— cherry blossoms; yet they have waited for one who comes but rarely in the year.
Had you not come today, tomorrow it would have fallen like falling snow; and though it did not melt away, would you still have seen it as blossom?
The white chrysanthemums that glow in crimson hue— are they, perhaps, the layered sleeves of the one who plucked them?
Like clouds in heaven, does he become a distant one, far beyond my reach? And yet, for all that, he remains before my eyes.

Where is the crimson glowing in beauty? White snow seems to have fallen bending the branches low.

Where is the crimson
glowing in beauty?
White snow
seems to have fallen
bending the branches low.