Mide suguru hito shi nakereba unohana no sakeru kakine ya Shirakawa no seki - Senzai Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

見で過ぐる人しなければ卯の花の
咲ける垣根や白河の関

Roma-ji: Mide suguru hito shi nakereba unohana no sakeru kakine ya Shirakawa no seki
English Translation: Since there is no one
who passes by without a look,
can this hedge
where the deutzia are blooming
be the Shirakawa Barrier?
Meaning: Since no one passes by without stopping to look, this hedge where the deutzia bloom must be the Shirakawa Barrier, holding back every traveler.
Commentary: Book Three Summer Poems 142

Headnote: "Composed on deutzia when the courtiers held a poetry contest while Retired Emperor Shirakawa was staying at the Toba Palace"
Composed on "deutzia" for a poetry contest held by the courtiers while Retired Emperor Shirakawa was living at the Toba Palace. No one passes the hedge where the deutzia bloom without stopping to look, so this hedge, the poet suggests, must be the Shirakawa Barrier that holds back travelers. Overlaying a checkpoint's power to stop people with the flowers' beauty, it lets the deutzia's whiteness echo the "white," shira, in Shirakawa.
The author, "Fujiwara no Suemichi Ason," was the son of Provisional Major Counselor Fujiwara no Munemichi and younger brother of Chancellor Fujiwara no Koremichi. He was also renowned as a master of the biwa and koto, and was one of the poets of Retired Emperor Sutoku's Kyūan Hundred-Poem Sequence.
The Shirakawa Barrier stood at the entrance to Michinoku and became a famous poetic place after Nōin's poem in the Goshūi Wakashū, "I left the capital together with the spring haze, yet the autumn wind is blowing at the Shirakawa Barrier."

First line, "mide suguru": the negative conjunctive "de" gives "passing by without looking."
Second line, "hito shi nakereba": "shi" is an emphatic particle, and the realized condition gives "since there is no one."
Third line, "unohana no": the subject of "sakeru" in the fourth line.
Fourth line, "sakeru kakine ya": "ya" poses a question, "can this hedge be." Like 139 of this book, it depicts deutzia on a hedge.
Fifth line, "Shirakawa no seki": ends on a noun, likening the hedge to a barrier that stops travelers. The "white" of Shirakawa echoes the whiteness of the deutzia. The next poem, 143, likens that whiteness to snow.
Author: Fujiwara no Suemichi
Source: Senzai Wakashu
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