Utagaishi inochi bakari wa ari nagara chigirishi naka no taenu beki kana - Senzai Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

疑ひし命ばかりはありながら
契りし中の絶えぬべきかな

Roma-ji: Utagaishi inochi bakari wa ari nagara chigirishi naka no taenu beki kana
English Translation: My life, which I had
doubted would go on, alone
remains to me still,
while the bond we pledged between us
now seems about to break
Meaning: My life, which I doubted would last, still goes on; yet the bond we pledged to each other seems about to break.
Commentary: Book Fifteen Love Poems V 910

Headnote: "Sent when a man with whom she had been intimate had not visited for a long time"
This poem was sent when a man with whom she had exchanged vows had not visited for a long time. My life, which I doubted would go on, alone remains, she says, while the bond we pledged seems about to break. Through the ironic reversal that her own life, which she thought so fragile, goes on, while their bond, which she believed eternal, is the first to break, she laments his change of heart and urges him to visit.
The author, "Daini no Sanmi," was the daughter of Fujiwara no Nobutaka, named Kenshi; her mother was Murasaki Shikibu. She served Jōtōmon'in Shōshi and became nurse to Prince Chikahito, later Emperor Go-Reizei. She is called by this name because she became the wife of Takashina no Nariakira, Senior Assistant Governor-General of Dazaifu. A poem of hers is included in the Ogura Hyakunin Isshu.
It shares the phrase "chigirishi naka" with poem 951 of this book, "shika bakari chigirishi naka mo kawarikeru," and both lament how easily a pledged bond changes.

First line, "utagaishi": "shi" is the attributive of the past "ki," "which I doubted would last."
Second line, "inochi bakari wa": "bakari" is restrictive, "my life alone."
Third line, "ari nagara": "nagara" is an adversative conjunctive particle, "though it remains." It shows that a life that should have been fleeting still goes on.
Fourth line, "chigirishi naka no": "chigiri" is a pledge for the future, and "naka" the bond between a man and a woman. It is the same phrasing as "chigirishi naka mo" in the second line of 951 of this book.
Fifth line, "taenu beki kana": "nu" is the perfective, here intensifying, "beki" the attributive of the conjectural "beshi," and "kana" exclamatory, "it seems about to break." Set against the life that goes on in the first and second lines, it throws the breaking of the bond into relief.
Author: Daini no Sanmi
Source: Senzai Wakashu
Prev Poem: Chihayaburu Kamo no yashiro no kami mo kike kimi wasurezu wa ware mo wasureji
Next Poem: Karibito wa togame mo ya sen kusa shigemi ayashiki tori no ato no midare o