Aware nari mukashi no hito o omou ni wa kinō no nobe ni miyuki semashi ya - Shin Kokin Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

あはれなり昔の人を思ふには
昨日の野辺に御幸せましや

Roma-ji: Aware nari mukashi no hito o omou ni wa kinō no nobe ni miyuki semashi ya
English Translation: How moving it is!
If you thought of those of old,
would you then, I wonder,
yesterday have made your way
on progress to the meadow?
Meaning: How deeply moving it is. Had you been thinking of those of old, would you have made a royal outing to the meadow as you did yesterday?
Commentary: Book Sixteen Miscellaneous Poems I 1438

Headnote: "Presented the next morning, after attending Retired Emperor En'yū when he held the Day of the Rat outing at Funaoka following his abdication."
This is the third poem of the sequence on the coming of spring. Guessing at the retired emperor's heart, the poet asks whether, had he been thinking of the past, he would have gone out to the meadow as he did yesterday. According to the headnote, the poet attended Retired Emperor En'yū at his Day of the Rat outing at Funaoka after his abdication, and presented this poem the following morning.
The author, "the Ichijō Minister of the Left," is Minamoto no Masanobu. A grandson of Emperor Uda and son of Prince Atsuzane, he rose to Minister of the Left, and his daughter Rinshi became the principal wife of Fujiwara no Michinaga.
The Day of the Rat outing was a New Year custom of going out to the fields on the first Day of the Rat to pull up young pines and pick young greens, praying for long life. Funaoka is Mount Funaoka, north of the capital in present-day Kita Ward, Kyoto, known as a site for these outings.
The retired emperor's reply to this poem is placed as the next poem.

The first line, "aware nari," expresses being deeply moved, and the poem breaks after the first line. It first states the feeling of the morning after the outing.
The second line, "mukashi no hito o," refers to those connected with the days now past. It corresponds to "mukashi o kouru" in the reply that follows.
The third line, "omou ni wa," means "if one thinks of," introducing the supposition of the last two lines.
The fourth line, "kinō no nobe ni," refers to the meadow at Funaoka where the outing took place the day before.
The last line, "miyuki semashi ya," adds the rhetorical "ya" to the counterfactual "mashi": would you have gone out—surely not. Had your heart been sunk in longing for the past, the poet reasons, you would not have gone on such an outing.
Author: Minamoto no Masanobu
Source: Shin Kokin Wakashu
Prev Poem: Yamakage ya sara de wa niwa ni ato mo nashi haru zo kinikeru yuki no muragie
Next Poem: Hikikaete nobe no keshiki wa mieshikado mukashi o kouru matsu wa nakariki