In what age to come
could I ever part from it—
the hut of grass where
we have bound between us now
a promise for long ages

Meaning

In what age could I ever part from it—this hut of grass where we have bound a promise meant to last?

Commentary

Part Three: Shiigamoto

　Kaoru answered on the spot when the prince entrusted the daughters to him. Taking up the other's kareji, he swears that he will never be the one to go. The promise keeps him coming to Uji, and in time he is caught between his feeling for Oigimi and the position of guardian he has accepted.

　"In what age" is a rhetorical question: in none. Kareseru carries on the prince's kareji and keeps both senses, to wither and to part. Musubu, to bind, belongs with grass, and holds the poem together with the hut of grass at the close. It is a reply that demonstrates sincerity in the very arrangement of its words, in Kaoru's manner.

Author

Murasaki Shikibu

Source

Genji Monogatari

Other

One who breaks a spray to wear it, and in passing goes by the rough hedge of a mountain rustic's house— just a traveller of spring
Though this hut of grass should fall to ruin when I am gone from the world, this one word, I would believe, will neither wither nor part
How must it be now, the mountain village in fall where the stag bells out— this evening, when the dew lies heavy on the small hagi
In this mountain place where nothing but tears close in like a standing mist, at the hedge the deer as well lift their voices all as one

In what age to come could I ever part from it— the hut of grass where we have bound between us now a promise for long ages

In what age to come
could I ever part from it—
the hut of grass where
we have bound between us now
a promise for long ages