Waga yado no hanatachibana wa itazura ni chiri ka suguramu miru hito nashi ni

我が宿の花橘はいたづらに
散りか過ぐらむ見る人なしに

Roma-ji: Waga yado no hanatachibana wa itazura ni chiri ka suguramu miru hito nashi ni
English Translation: The orange blossoms
in the garden of my house,
all to no avail
will they scatter and be gone,
with no one there to see
Meaning: Will the orange blossoms in my garden scatter and pass away in vain, with no one there to look upon them?
Commentary: Book Fifteen Exchange Poems of Nakatomi no Yakamori and Sano no Otogami no Otome 3779

Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "Poems exchanged between Nakatomi no Ason Yakamori and Sano no Otogami no Otome"
He imagines the orange blossoms in his garden in the capital scattering in vain with no one to see them. On the flowers that bloom and fall in a house without its master he overlays the grief of exile. It is the first of the seven poems on flowers and birds, and the only one about flowers. It shares the conceit of 3681 of this book, in which Hata no Tamaro, an envoy to Silla in the first half, imagined the bush clover and pampas grass of his garden scattering, so the laments of men far from home overlap across the two halves.
The author, Nakatomi no Yakamori, was a son of Nakatomi no Azumahito, from the Nakatomi clan in charge of the rites of the gods. He was exiled to Echizen Province for an offense, but was later pardoned and returned to the capital.
A left note reads "the above seven poems were composed by Nakatomi no Ason Yakamori expressing his thoughts through flowers and birds"; the seven poems from 3779 to 3785 of this book express his feelings through flowers and birds, six of them singing of the little cuckoo. The latter half of this book contains sixty-three poems exchanged between Nakatomi no Yakamori and Sano no Otogami no Otome. According to the book's table of contents, when Yakamori took as his wife the young woman, a lady-in-waiting of the palace storehouse office, he was exiled to Echizen Province by imperial decree. The place of exile is thought to be Ajimano in Echizen, near present-day Echizen City, Fukui Prefecture.

First line, "waga yado no": "yado" is one's house or garden, here Yakamori's house in the capital.
Second line, "hanatachibana wa": a tachibana orange in bloom, which bears white flowers in early summer and was famed for its fragrance.
Third line, "itazura ni": in vain, to no purpose.
Fourth line, "chiri ka suguramu": "ka" is an interrogative binding particle resolved by the attributive "ramu": will they scatter and pass? The poem breaks after the fourth line.
Fifth line, "miru hito nashi ni": with no one to see them, inverted with the fourth line, ending with the loneliness of a house without its master.
Author: Nakatomi no Yakamori
Source: Manyoshu
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