Asagiri no naka ni kimi masu mono naraba haruru manimani ureshikaramashi

English Translation

If it were the case
that you were there in the mist
of morning, then as
it lifted, little by little
I should be glad of the light

Meaning

If you were there in the morning mist, then as it lifted, little by little, I should be glad.

Commentary

28 In the Morning Mist

In the autumn of the year in which Kaisen's father, an officer of the Palace Guards, had died, his friends gathered at the house and drank together from nightfall. Guests and host alike spoke with longing of the man who was gone. Towards daybreak, in the half-light, the mist came rolling in, and one of the guests composed "Asagiri no naka ni kimi masu mono naraba haruru manimani ureshikaramashi". Kaisen's reply was "Koto naraba harezu mo aranamu akigiri no magire ni mienu kimi to omowamu". The guests were Ki no Tsurayuki, Ki no Tomonori and others. That is the whole of the section.
Kaisen is the priest of the twenty-seventh section, where he lives in the hills and falls out with his parent. Here we learn that his father held a post as second officer in the Palace Guards. Ki no Tsurayuki and Ki no Tomonori, named among the guests, were both compilers of the Kokin-shū.
The setting is Kaisen's house, in the autumn of the year his father died. They had been drinking from nightfall through the night.
What prompted the poem was the mist rolling in towards daybreak, into a gathering that had been speaking of the dead man.
Kaisen answered with a poem of his own, and the exchange closes the section. The prose ends by naming the guests: Ki no Tsurayuki, Ki no Tomonori and others.

The poem sets up a condition: if he were there in the morning mist. The verb used for his being there is an honorific, out of respect for the dead.
The grammar is that of a supposition contrary to fact, which takes for granted that he is not.
The phrase in the fourth line means as the mist lifts, in step with its lifting: if it cleared, he would come into view.
The closing says that the speaker would then be glad. But since the condition is false, the clearing mist will show no one. The poem states a gladness and means its opposite.

Source

Yamato Monogatari

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