Arenikeri aware ikuyo no yado nare ya sumikemu hito no otozure mo senu - Kokin Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

荒れにけりあはれ幾世の宿なれや
住みけむ人の訪れもせぬ

Roma-ji: Arenikeri aware ikuyo no yado nare ya sumikemu hito no otozure mo senu
English Translation: It has gone to ruin;
ah, through how many ages
has this house stood,
that of those who must have lived here
not one comes to call?
Meaning: It has fallen into ruin. Ah, how many ages has this house seen? Not a single one of those who must once have lived here ever comes to visit.
Commentary: Book Eighteen Miscellaneous Poems II 984

Headnote: "Topic unknown"
Seeing a ruined house, the poet thinks of those who once lived there and of the long years it has passed through. In a dwelling that no one visits any longer, the poet senses the flow of time and impermanence.
Where 981 in this book grieved that a village might fall to ruin, this poem sings of a house already ruined, and leads into the koto heard in a ruined house in the next poem, 985.
The author is recorded as anonymous, and the name has not come down to us.

The first line, "it has gone to ruin," uses ni (perfective) and keri (exclamation); the poem breaks here.
The second line, "ah, through how many ages," uses the exclamation aware.
The third line, "has this house stood," uses the interrogative ya, answered by the attributive senu at the end.
The fourth line, "those who must have lived here," uses kemu, conjecture about the past, in the attributive.
The last line, "not one comes to call," uses nu, the attributive of the negative zu, completing the ya construction.
Author: Unknown Poet
Source: Kokin Wakashu
Prev Poem: Waga io wa miyako no tatsumi shika zo sumu yo o ujiyama to hito wa iu nari
Next Poem: Wabibito no sumu beki yado to miru nae ni nageki kuwawaru koto no ne zo suru