The wisteria
waves seemed hard to pass on by—
it was the pine, and
the waiting, that were the sign
this house had been keeping here

Meaning

That the wisteria waves seemed too much to pass by—it was the pine, and the waiting, that marked this house out for me.

Commentary

Part One: Yomogiu

　Once inside, Genji said he had been putting her to the test, resenting that she never wrote, but that seeing the mark of the pines he could not pass by. She was as reticent as ever and slow to answer. Since the place made a long stay awkward, he talked his way toward leaving, and moved by the height the pines had reached in years he had not planted them, and by the dreamlike course of his own life at Suma and Akashi, he spoke this poem. She answered.

　"Fujinami" is wisteria hanging in wave-like clusters, the sight that stopped him at the gate. "Hard to pass by" is just that. "Matsu" is the pine and also waiting, and it is the hinge of the poem. "Shirushi" is a mark or proof. Drawing on Mitsune's poem about the planter grown old while the pine grew tall, he lays a woman's constancy over the years a tree has taken to grow.

Author

Murasaki Shikibu

Source

Genji Monogatari

Other

The wisteria waves seemed hard to pass on by— it was the pine, and the waiting, that were the sign this house had been keeping here

The wisteria
waves seemed hard to pass on by—
it was the pine, and
the waiting, that were the sign
this house had been keeping here