Our meeting seems but
like the cord between the gems,
so brief it appears;
your unfeeling heart
seems to stretch on long and long.

Meaning

Meeting you seems but like the cord between the gems, so brief it appears, while your unfeeling heart, in not coming to me, seems to stretch on without end.

Commentary

Episode Thirty: "Our meeting seems but"

A certain man sent this poem to a woman whom he met only very rarely.

It is a poem lamenting their inability to meet. The joyful time spent together feels short, while the pain of not meeting feels long and drawn out.

The cord between the gems is the string that runs through the jewels; because the space between the gems is short, it is used as a comparison.

It is included in the Shin Chokusen Collection as "Author unknown."

Source

Ise Monogatari

Other

Why has it come to pass that thus our meeting time has grown so hard to gain?— though we had bound our vow as if to let no water leak.
At blossoms never have I failed in lamenting— always it was so; yet on this night alone there has been no time like this.
If one without sin is made the object of curse, they say that forget- grass will upon one’s own self grow there upon one’s own self.
As in ancient days the rustic weaver’s spool is wound back again, would that there were some means now to make the past the present.

Our meeting seems but like the cord between the gems, so brief it appears; your unfeeling heart seems to stretch on long and long.

Our meeting seems but
like the cord between the gems,
so brief it appears;
your unfeeling heart
seems to stretch on long and long.