Shimo sayagu nobe no kusaba ni aranedomo nado ka hitome no karemasaruramu - Shin Kokin Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

霜さやぐ野辺の草葉にあらねども
などか人目のかれまさるらむ

Roma-ji: Shimo sayagu nobe no kusaba ni aranedomo nado ka hitome no karemasaruramu
English Translation: Though you are no blade
of grass on the moorland where
the frost rustles cold,
why then should your visits here
wither ever farther off?
Meaning: You are not the grass of the moor rustling with frost, so why do your visits wither away from me more and more?
Commentary: Book Fourteen Love Poems IV 1244

Headnote: "To someone who had long not come to court."
This is the fourth poem of the sequence lamenting estrangement through images of autumn and winter. You are not the grass of the frost-rustled moor, the speaker says, so why do your visits drift ever farther away? According to the headnote, it was sent to someone who had long not come to the palace.
The author, "Engi Poem," is Emperor Daigo. A son of Emperor Uda, his reign was praised as the Engi era of good government, and he commanded Ki no Tsurayuki and others to compile the Kokinshū. Engi is an era name of his reign, and "Engi Poem" means a poem composed by Emperor Daigo.
The recipient answers in the next poem, 1245.

The first line, "shimo sayagu," means "where the frost-covered grass rustles." The season has advanced from the autumn wind of the preceding poem to a winter scene.
The second line, "nobe no kusaba ni," is the moorland grass withering in the frost. Likening a person to grass takes the same stance as "I, who am no arrowroot leaf" in the preceding poem.
The third line, "aranedomo," means "though you are not." Using the same verb as "aranu" in the second line of the preceding poem, it continues the logic: you are no plant, and yet.
In the fourth line, "nado ka hitome no," "nado ka" means "why," and "hitome" refers to a person's visits.
In the last line, "karemasaruramu," "kare" is a pivot word meaning both the "withering" of grass and a person "drawing away." The same device linking visits and grass through "kare" appears in Minamoto no Muneyuki's winter poem in the Kokinshū: "In a mountain village winter is loneliest of all, when I think how both visitors and grasses have withered away."
Author: Emperor Daigo
Source: Shin Kokin Wakashu
Prev Poem: Kuzu no ha ni aranu wagami mo akikaze no fuku ni tsuketsutsu uramitsuru kana
Next Poem: Asaji ouru nobe ya karuramu yamagatsu no kakiho no kusa wa iro mo kawarazu