If you have decided
that the time to come is short,
then at the least, while
I am here before your eyes,
I would have you not turn away

Meaning

If you take the time to come to be short, then at least, while I am here before your eyes, do not turn away from me.

Commentary

Part Three: Agemaki

　Niou's further poem, in answer to hers. If the future cannot be believed in, he says, let her at least accept the man in front of her now. Soon after, he resolved to bring her up to the Nijo residence in the capital, and the tale moves on to Sawarabi.

　Yukusue takes her word exactly as she used it. Me no mae ni dani is at least here and now. Somuku is to turn away, to let the heart go, and is also the word for taking religious vows. To grant that the bond has no visible future and then to ask that the present feeling be accepted is an argument that shows Niou's impatience and his frankness together.

Author

Murasaki Shikibu

Source

Genji Monogatari

Other

Wanting so to know the drug by which one may die of longing at last, shall I go into the snow of the hills and leave no trace
Even to look back and call up what has gone by is to find it frail; on what, then, should I rely for all the time still to come
Because it was for you that I have picked them through so many springs, these are the season's first bracken, unforgetful as ever
This spring, to whom now am I to show them—these young bracken of the peak, picked as a keepsake left by one who is no longer here

If you have decided that the time to come is short, then at the least, while I am here before your eyes, I would have you not turn away

If you have decided
that the time to come is short,
then at the least, while
I am here before your eyes,
I would have you not turn away