Aratama no toshi wa henedomo Sarusawa no ike no tamamo wa mitsubekarikeri

English Translation

The year has not turned
not so much time has gone by
and yet it seems I
shall come to see the jewelled
weeds of Sarusawa's pond

Meaning

Not even a year has gone round, and already it seems I am to see the jewelled weeds of Sarusawa pond.

Commentary

14 The Jewelled Weeds of the Pond

The Lady of the North at Hon'in had a younger sister whose childhood name was Ōtsufune. She was presented to the retired Emperor Yōzei, and when he did not come to her, this poem was composed and sent to him. The prose says no more, and the section consists of this single poem.
The Lady of the North at Hon'in was the wife of the Minister of the Left, Fujiwara no Tokihira. Ōtsufune was her younger sister, called here by her childhood name. Yōzei is the emperor after his abdication. The prose says only that the poem was composed and presented, and does not make clear whether the poet was Ōtsufune herself or someone on her side.
The setting is the period after she was presented to the retired emperor, with no visit from him.
What prompted the poem was precisely that absence of visits. It was sent to him.
The section ends with the poem; no response and no later event is recorded. The poem draws on the story of a palace serving woman who, once summoned by an emperor and then neglected, threw herself into the water, her hair becoming the weed in the pond — a story told at length in the hundred and fiftieth section.

The first line is a fixed epithet attached to the word for year. The second says that no such span of time has passed.
Its concessive grammar carries the sense of: and yet, in spite of that. The implication is that she has waited nothing like as long as the woman in the story.
The closing verb expresses what is bound or likely to happen: it seems the weeds are already in view. Nothing is stated as a complaint; an old story is simply held out.
Anyone who knows the story sees at once what is meant; anyone who does not hears only a piece of old lore. The reading is left to whoever receives it.

Source

Yamato Monogatari

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