Haru no sono kurenai niou momo no hana shitaderu michi ni idetatsu otome

春の園紅にほふ桃の花
下照る道に出で立つ娘子

Roma-ji: Haru no sono kurenai niou momo no hana shitaderu michi ni idetatsu otome
English Translation: In the spring garden,
glowing crimson, peach blossoms—
on the path below,
lit red by them, there stands
a maiden who has stepped out
Meaning: In the spring garden the peach blossoms glow crimson, and on the path beneath them, lit red by their color, a young woman has stepped out and stands.
Commentary: Book Nineteen 4139

Headnote: "Two poems composed on the evening of the first day of the third month, Tenpyō Shōhō 2, gazing at the peach and plum blossoms in the spring garden"
This celebrated poem by Ōtomo no Yakamochi opens Book Nineteen of the Man'yōshū. It paints, as if in a single picture, peach blossoms glowing crimson in a spring garden and a young woman standing in the light they cast. The headnote tells us it was composed on the evening of the first day of the third month of 750, as Yakamochi gazed at the peach and plum trees in the garden of the governor's residence in Etchū.
The overlapping of crimson blossoms and a maiden is often compared to the "beauty beneath a tree" motif seen in the Shōsōin screen of standing ladies with bird-feather garments, and the poem is famed for bringing a Tang-inspired aesthetic into Japanese verse. The spring sequence that opens this book is regarded as the high point of Yakamochi's years in Etchū.
The bright spring scene at the head of the book answers the spring melancholy of the final poem, "In the gentle glow of the spring sun, a skylark rises" (4292), so that the whole book begins and ends in spring.
The poet, Ōtomo no Yakamochi, was the son of the Grand Counselor Ōtomo no Tabito. From 746 he served as Governor of Etchū, living at the provincial headquarters in what is now Fushiki, Takaoka, Toyama Prefecture. He is regarded as the leading poet of the Nara period and is thought to have played a central role in compiling the Man'yōshū.

First line, "haru no sono" (the spring garden), softens the Chinese term "spring garden" in the headnote and sets the scene with the echo of Chinese verse.
Second line, "kurenai niou" (glowing crimson): "niou" here refers not to scent but to color shining vividly. It pairs, in color, with the white plum blossoms of the next poem.
Third line, "momo no hana" (peach blossoms), is a noun phrase; some read a pause here, while others read it as continuing into the lower verse. Either way, the upper verse draws out the brightness of the crimson.
Fourth line, "shitaderu michi ni" (on the path lit below), describes the path beneath the trees glowing red with the color of the blossoms. The color fills the whole space, creating a strikingly pictorial effect.
Fifth line, "idetatsu otome" (a maiden who has stepped out), ends on a noun and closes vividly on the figure of the young woman standing in the blossom light.
Author: Otomo no Yakamochi
Source: Manyoshu
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