Kokoro araba nioi o soe yo sakurabana nochi no haru o ba itsuka mirubeki - Senzai Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

心あらば匂ひを添へよ桜花
後の春をばいつか見るべき

Roma-ji: Kokoro araba nioi o soe yo sakurabana nochi no haru o ba itsuka mirubeki
English Translation: If you have a heart,
add still more to your splendor,
O cherry blossoms;
for the springs that are to come,
when shall I be there to see?
Meaning: If you have a heart, O cherry blossoms, add still more to your beauty. For the springs that lie ahead, when shall I ever see them again?
Commentary: Book Seventeen Miscellaneous Poems II 1052

Headnote: "Composed on seeing the blossoms before him when the cherries of the Toba Palace were at their height, in the spring of the year after the celebration of his fiftieth year"
In the spring of the year after his fiftieth-year celebration, when the cherries of the Toba Palace were at their height, the emperor looked at the blossoms before him and composed this poem. If you have a heart, add still more beauty, O cherry blossoms; when shall I see the springs to come, he says. Past the celebration of his fiftieth year and aware of growing old, he cannot be sure he will see the blossoms again next spring, and so he calls on this year's flowers to bloom all the more beautifully. It is a quietly moving poem that looks at the limits of life even in the midst of glory.
The author, "the poem of Retired Emperor Toba," is a poem by Emperor Toba. A son of Emperor Horikawa, after abdicating he ruled as retired emperor through the three reigns of Sutoku, Konoe and Go-Shirakawa. The Toba Palace was a detached palace built at Toba south of the capital and used as the retired emperor's residence.
This poem opens the second book of miscellaneous poems. The closing poem, 1159, conveys the kindness of Retired Emperor Go-Shirakawa, so that the book begins and ends with poems connected with a retired emperor. From this poem to 1075, poems follow that express thoughts of age and of leaving the world through the flowers of spring.

First line, "kokoro araba": "if you have a heart," addressing the cherry blossoms as if they were a person. It shares "kokoro" with "kokoro naraneba" in the fifth line of the next poem, 1053.
Second line, "nioi o soe yo": "nioi" is the glowing beauty of the flowers, and "soe yo" is imperative, "add still more beauty."
Third line, "sakurabana": an address to the blossoms, and the poem pauses here. It stands in inversion with the command of the second line, strengthening the appeal to the flowers. The next poem, 1053, also places "sakurabana" in its third line.
Fourth line, "nochi no haru o ba": "the springs to come," with "o ba" a strengthened form of the object particle "o."
Fifth line, "itsuka mirubeki": "itsuka" asks "when," and "beki" is the attributive of the auxiliary of possibility "beshi," "when shall I be able to see?" It carries a lament for the years that remain.
Author: Emperor Toba
Source: Senzai Wakashu
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