Haru sareba ki no konokure no yūzukuyo ōtsukanashi mo yamakage ni shite

春されば木の木の暗の夕月夜
おほつかなしも山蔭にして

Roma-ji: Haru sareba ki no konokure no yūzukuyo ōtsukanashi mo yamakage ni shite
English Translation: When the spring comes round,
in the shadows of the trees
the evening moonlight
is uncertain, dim and faint,
lying in the mountain's shade.
Meaning: When spring comes, the evening moon seen through the dark shade of the trees is dim and uncertain, lying as it does in the shadow of the hills.
Commentary: Book Ten Spring Miscellaneous Poems 1875

Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "On the Moon"
This poem sings of the dimness of the evening moon seen through the darkness under trees that have grown thick in spring, in the shadow of a mountain. Whereas the preceding poem imagined an evening moon shining clear, this one sings of an evening moon blurred by tree shade and mountain shadow, so that the clarity and the dimness of the same evening moon stand in contrast. The kundoku also carries a variant, "haru sareba konokure ōmi yūzukuyo," reading the upper lines as "because the tree shade is thick."

The first line, "when spring comes," marks the season.
In the second line, "ki no konokure no," "konokure" means a place made dark by thick trees, the gloom beneath them. The line is hypermetric.
The third line, "yūzukuyo," is the same word as the third line of the preceding poem, which the two share.
The fourth line, "ōtsukanashi mo," means dim and uncertain, with "mo" as an exclamatory particle. The poem breaks here.
The last line, "in the mountain's shadow," gives by inversion the reason for the dimness at the close.
Source: Manyoshu
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