With no season to
it, I long for the people
of the great palace,
and now the day has come round
when we wore the cherry sprays

Meaning

I long for the people of the palace at every season, and now the day has come round again when we wore cherry in our caps.

Commentary

Part One: Suma

　The new year came at Suma, and in the long idle days the young cherries he had planted began to open. Past the twentieth of the second month he found himself missing the people he had left the year before, and thought the cherries before the Shishinden must be at their height. Remembering how at the flower banquet the Suzaku Emperor had recited a line of his own composing, he spoke this poem. Soon afterward the Third Rank Captain, now a Consultant, came to visit.

　"Itsu to naku" is at no particular season, that is, always. "Omiyabito" are those who serve at court, a word used in earlier chapters too. "The day we wore cherry" is the day of the flower banquet, summoning the scene of the eighth chapter directly. The past is called back by the turning of the ceremonial year, showing that even in exile the court calendar still governs his mind.

Author

Murasaki Shikibu

Source

Genji Monogatari

Other

With no season to it, I long for the people of the great palace, and now the day has come round when we wore the cherry sprays

With no season to
it, I long for the people
of the great palace,
and now the day has come round
when we wore the cherry sprays