With all of those years
set between us, I have come
to Meeting Hill—yet
how little I can dam them,
these tears that keep on falling

Meaning

With all those years set between us I have come at last to Meeting Hill, and yet how little I can dam these tears that keep on falling.

Commentary

Part Two: Wakana Jo

　With Suzaku gone from the world his palace emptied, and Oborozukiyo, once his favorite, had gone back to what had been the Minister of the Right's house. Hearing of it, Genji remembered the old affair that had sent him off to Suma and Akashi, and sent word that he wished to see her. She refused firmly, and when they did meet she would not move the panel that stood between them. He spoke this poem to that barrier. She answered to hold him off, but he pushed the panel aside and had his way.

　"All of those years" is a gap of some fifteen years. "Meeting Hill" is Osaka, a poetic place-name in Omi; it sounds the verb to meet, and it also brings in the barrier gate, which leads to the word for damming. The old poetic scene of the spring at the gate is laid over tears that flow because two people are kept apart, and hill, gate, dam, and tears are threaded through the whole as associated words. The feeling of the reunion rides on a great deal of technique.

Author

Murasaki Shikibu

Source

Genji Monogatari

Other

With all of those years set between us, I have come to Meeting Hill—yet how little I can dam them, these tears that keep on falling

With all of those years
set between us, I have come
to Meeting Hill—yet
how little I can dam them,
these tears that keep on falling