Ko no ha chiru to bakari kikite yaminamashi morade shigure no yamameguri seba - Senzai Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

木の葉散るとばかり聞きてやみなまし
漏らで時雨の山巡りせば

Roma-ji: Ko no ha chiru to bakari kikite yaminamashi morade shigure no yamameguri seba
English Translation: I would have heard it
only as the falling of leaves
and thought no more,
had the showers roamed the hills
and never leaked inside
Meaning: I would have taken it only for the sound of falling leaves, had the showers merely roamed the mountains without leaking in.
Commentary: Book Six Winter Poems 405

Headnote: "Composed as a poem on winter showers"
Composed as a poem on winter showers. Had the showers merely roamed the mountains without leaking through the roof, the poet says, he would have taken the sound only for falling leaves and thought no more of it. The conceit is that only when rain leaked through the roof did he realize the sound he had heard was showers.
The author, "Ninnaji Go-Nyūdō Hosshinnō (Kakushō)," was a son of Emperor Toba. He became the fifth abbot of Ninnaji and was called the Shikondaiji Omuro.
Where the preceding poem, 404, sings of a sound taken for showers that turned out to be leaves, this poem sings of a sound taken for leaves that turned out to be showers. The two poems, setting the same mistake in opposite directions, stand side by side.

First line, "ko no ha chiru": the sound of leaves falling, answering "ko no ha naru ran," the last line of the preceding poem, 404.
Second line, "to bakari kikite": "bakari" limits, "hearing it only as leaves falling."
Third line, "yaminamashi": "mashi" is the counterfactual auxiliary, answering "seba" in the last line, "I would have let it end there." The poem pauses here, and its order is inverted with the lower verse.
Fourth line, "morade shigure no": the negative connective "de," "without leaking," turning inside out the "moranu shigure" of the preceding poem, 404.
Fifth line, "yamameguri seba": "yamameguri" is for showers to fall as they make the round of the mountains, and "seba" is the counterfactual supposition answering "mashi." 408 of this book sings of the same "yama meguru."
Author: Prince-Priest Kakushō
Source: Senzai Wakashu
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