Kumo no ue no haru koso sara ni wasurarene hana wa kazu ni mo omoiideji o - Senzai Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

雲の上の春こそさらに忘られね
花は数にも思ひ出でじを

Roma-ji: Kumo no ue no haru koso sara ni wasurarene hana wa kazu ni mo omoiideji o
English Translation: The springs I knew there
above the clouds at the court
I cannot forget,
though the blossoms will not count me
as one worth remembering
Meaning: Above all I cannot forget the springs I spent above the clouds at court. Yet the blossoms, surely, will not think of me as anyone worth remembering.
Commentary: Book Seventeen Miscellaneous Poems II 1056

Headnote: "Composed as a poem on blossoms after I had left the world"
This poem was composed as a poem on blossoms after he had withdrawn from the world. Above all I cannot forget the springs above the clouds, though the blossoms will not count me worth remembering, he says. Though he has cast off the world, he confesses that he cannot forget the springs when he admired the flowers at court, while the flowers, he imagines, will not even recall him, a feeling much like unrequited love. It shows an attachment to court service he cannot sever.
The author, "Master of the Empress Dowager's Household Shunzei," is Fujiwara no Shunzei. A son of Fujiwara no Toshitada, he served as master of the empress dowager's household, took the tonsure in Angen 2 (1176) and was called Shakua. He compiled the Senzai Wakashū and was the father of Fujiwara no Teika.
Where the preceding poem, 1055, imagines how the flowers see the poet who has taken the tonsure, this one says the flowers will not even recall him, so that the two correspond in the relation between a man who has left the world and the flowers.

First line, "kumo no ue no": "above the clouds," meaning the court. It has six syllables, one too many. It shares the likening of the court to clouds with "kumoji," the cloud path, in 1158 and 1159 at the close of the book.
Second line, "haru koso sara ni": "koso" is an emphatic binding particle closing with "ne" in the third line, and "sara ni" means "all the more."
Third line, "wasurarene": "re" is the irrealis of the spontaneous auxiliary "ru," and "ne" the realis of the negative "zu," "I cannot help but remember." This closes the binding, and the poem pauses here.
Fourth line, "hana wa kazu ni mo": "kazu ni mo," "even as one to be counted," answers the negative in the fifth line.
Fifth line, "omoiideji o": "ji" is the auxiliary of negative conjecture, and "o" adds a lingering note of contrast, "though they will not remember me."
Author: Fujiwara no Shunzei
Source: Senzai Wakashu
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