classic waka stream

The house where flowers
bloomed in peace—but years go by,
and now it appears
only as a moon that leans
westward, going down to set

Meaning
The house where flowers bloomed in peace—now that the years have passed, it looks only like a moon leaning westward to set.
Commentary
Volume Seven: The Taira Petition to Mount Hiei

　After their defeat in the north, worse news reached the Taira: Kiso Yoshinaka had sent a formal letter to Mount Hiei asking its support, and the mountain had already replied that it would give it. With Enryaku-ji behind the Minamoto, holding the capital would be impossible.
　The Taira determined to appeal to the mountain's gods and win over its three thousand monks, and ten nobles of the house sent a joint petition. Since Dengyō Daishi, it said, the mountain has been a seat of the flourishing Law and a defense of the state; now Yoritomo slights the court and, with Yoshinaka and Yukiie, has seized province after province with intolerable violence, while the imperial forces gain nothing and the situation worsens; without the protection of the gods and buddhas the revolt cannot be put down; from this day let the mountain's joy be the joy of our house and the shrine's anger our anger. It invoked the seven Sannō shrines and all the guardian deities of the mountain. Michimori, Sukemori, Koremori, Shigehira, Kiyomune, Tsunemori, Tomomori, Norimori, Yorimori, and Munemori set their names to it.
　The abbot of the Tendai school felt for them and did not show it to the monks at once; he performed rites for three days at the Jūzenji hall before laying it before the assembly. On the outer sheet of the petition a poem had been written. This is it.
　It was already too late. To monks who had resolved to side with the Minamoto, neither the gods' pity nor the abbot's prayers meant anything. Fortune had left the Taira.

　Taira ka ni, "in peace," puns on Heike, the Taira. The house where flowers bloom is the flourishing family seat. The upper verse gives the splendor; the lower says that it now looks like a moon leaning west.
　West is where the sun goes down, and it is also the direction of the Pure Land. Ruin and rebirth point the same way. And immediately after this the Taira do go west. Geography, time, and faith all gather in that one word.
　Unlike the lampoons that have run through the tale since Volume Four, this is not mockery. It was written on a petition the Taira themselves submitted, and therefore by one of their own. At the head of a document begging for help stands a poem that has already seen the end of the house. They ask, and have given up. Against the forceful language of the petition below it—without the protection of gods and buddhas—the verse stands out all the more.

tairaka ni……in peace; puns on Heike.
hana saku yado……a house where flowers bloom; the flourishing family seat.
toshi hereba……when the years have passed.
nishi e katamuku tsuki……a moon leaning west to set; the Pure Land and the westward flight together.
ganjo……a written petition offered to gods or buddhas.
rensho……a joint signature by several people.
Tendai zasu……the abbot of Enryaku-ji.
Jūzenji……one of the seven Sannō shrines.
kaji……rites of invocation.
Sannō shichisha……the seven shrines of Hiyoshi.
Source
Heike Monogatari
Other