Yuki no iro o ubaite sakeru ume no hana ima sakari nari mimu hito mo ga mo

雪の色を奪ひて咲ける梅の花
今盛りなり見む人もがも

Roma-ji: Yuki no iro o ubaite sakeru ume no hana ima sakari nari mimu hito mo ga mo
English Translation: Stealing for its own
the very color of the snow,
the plum is blooming,
and now is at its very best —
if only someone came to see
Meaning: The plum blossoms, having stolen the color of the snow, are now at their peak. If only there were someone to see them.
Commentary: Book Five Miscellaneous Poems 850

Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "Four poems later composed in response to the plum poems"
With the plum now at its peak, so white it seems to have stolen the snow's color, the poet wishes for someone to see it with him. The loneliness of viewing the lovely plum alone in the garden, after the banquet's splendor has passed, seeps through.
The headnote reads "Four poems later composed in response to the plum poems," and they were written after the Plum Blossom Banquet as a reply to its poems. No author is named, but they are generally attributed to Ōtomo no Tabito, the host of the banquet.
The poet, Ōtomo no Tabito, was the son of the Major Counselor Ōtomo no Yasumaro and the father of Ōtomo no Yakamochi. Late in the Jinki era he went down to Tsukushi as Governor-General of Dazaifu, returned to the capital in Tenpyō 2 as Major Counselor, and died the following year. Versed in Chinese letters and Daoist thought, he formed a literary circle at Dazaifu with Yamanoue no Okura and others, known as the Tsukushi poetic circle.

First line, "yuki no iro o": the white color of snow. The line has six syllables, one more than the norm.
Second line, "ubaite sakeru": blooming white as if having stolen the snow's whiteness, a personifying turn learned from Chinese poetry.
Third line, "ume no hana": the central image of the poem.
Fourth line, "ima sakari nari": the same line found in the banquet poems 820 and 834; the poem breaks here.
Fifth line, "mimu hito mo ga mo": "mo ga mo" expresses a wish: if only there were someone to see. The next poem ends with the same line.
Author: Ōtomo no Tabito (attributed)
Source: Manyoshu
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