Toshigoto ni haru no nagame wa seshikadomo mi sae furu tomo omowazarishi o - Shui Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

年ごとに春のながめはせしかども
身さへふるとも思はざりしを

Roma-ji: Toshigoto ni haru no nagame wa seshikadomo mi sae furu tomo omowazarishi o
English Translation: Year after year, in spring,
through the long rains I would gaze
out, lost in my thoughts,
yet that I too, like the rain,
would age, I never thought.
Meaning: Every spring, through the long rains, I would gaze out lost in thought, yet I never imagined that, as the rain fell, I myself would grow old.
Commentary: Book Sixteen Miscellaneous Spring Poems 1057

Headnote: "Topic unknown"
The poet laments that though every spring he gazed out lost in thought during the long rains, he never imagined that, as the rain fell, he himself would grow old. Pivoting on "nagame," "long rain" and "gazing in reverie," and "furu," to "fall" and to "grow old," it sings of surprise and grief at a self that has grown old unawares amid each spring's reveries. It shares with Ono no Komachi's Kokinshū poem "hana no iro wa utsurinikeri na" the device of using the same pivot words to sing of aging amid reverie. It also echoes the lament of age in the opening poems of this book, 1000 and 1001.

First line, "toshigoto ni," means "year after year," sharing the same line with the first line of the next poem, 1058, and of 1013 in this book.
Second line, "haru no nagame wa," means "the reverie of the spring rains," with "nagame" a pivot word on "long rain" and "gazing lost in thought."
Third line, "seshikadomo," means "though I have done so," with "shika" the perfective form of the past auxiliary "ki" and "domo" a concessive particle.
Fourth line, "mi sae furu tomo," means "that I too would grow old," with "furu" a pivot word on rain "falling" and "growing old" with the years. It echoes the fourth and final lines of 1001 in this book, "waga mi nomi koso furimasarikere," in lamenting a self that ages.
Final line, "omowazarishi o," means "I never thought, and yet," with "o" a conjunctive particle carrying a sigh.
Author: Unknown Poet
Source: Shui Wakashu
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