At the break of dawn,
lost though I am in a sky
where the mist is thick,
here is the gate of the one
I love, hard to pass on by

Meaning

At daybreak, lost in a sky thick with mist, I come to her gate and find I cannot pass it by.

Commentary

Part One: Wakamurasaki

　On a wild night of falling hail, Genji went to the house where the girl was and stayed beside her through the night while she was frightened. Going home the next morning through heavy mist, he passed her gate and had an attendant call in, then spoke this poem. A woman of the house sent an answer. A few days later, on the night before her father was to fetch her, he carried the girl off to the Nijo residence.

　"Asaborake" is the first faint light of day, the hour of the morning-after journey home. "Lost in a sky where the mist rises" lays not being able to see over not knowing one's own mind. "My love's gate" is an old poetic phrase for a lover's house, and saying he cannot pass it states his reluctance to go. That he uses the full form of a morning-after poem even though the person inside is a child shows how tangled this scene is.

Author

Murasaki Shikibu

Source

Genji Monogatari

Other

At the break of dawn, lost though I am in a sky where the mist is thick, here is the gate of the one I love, hard to pass on by

At the break of dawn,
lost though I am in a sky
where the mist is thick,
here is the gate of the one
I love, hard to pass on by