It is the season
that makes you feel it so much
the plum blossom's scent
and nothing more than the scent
would not have drawn you like this

Meaning

It is the season that makes you feel it so; the plum's scent and nothing more would never have drawn you like this.

Commentary

Part Three: Takekawa

　A woman behind the blind answered the Lieutenant with this as he sighed and made to leave. The next morning a letter came from Kaoru to the Fujiwara Chamberlain, and the exchange of poems went on elsewhere.

　The plum blossom is Kaoru, taken straight from the other poem's "flower." "Ka bakari," only the scent, also reads as "kabakari," as much as this, so that she says no mere fragrance could move hearts so far. It is the season, not the scent itself, that has them all in thrall. Turned around, it tells him that his own season may yet come, and so it makes light of his despair and encourages him at once, in the tactful manner of a gentlewoman.

Author

Murasaki Shikibu

Source

Genji Monogatari

Other

It is the season that makes you feel it so much the plum blossom's scent and nothing more than the scent would not have drawn you like this

It is the season
that makes you feel it so much
the plum blossom's scent
and nothing more than the scent
would not have drawn you like this