Omou koto nakute ya haru o sugusamashi ukiyo hedatsuru kasumi nariseba - Senzai Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

思ふことなくてや春を過ぐさまし
憂き世隔つる霞なりせば

Roma-ji: Omou koto nakute ya haru o sugusamashi ukiyo hedatsuru kasumi nariseba
English Translation: With nothing to brood on,
would I pass the spring in peace,
I wonder, if only
this were a haze that could shut
the sorrowful world away
Meaning: Would I have passed the spring without a care in my heart, if only this haze were one that shut away the sorrowful world?
Commentary: Book Seventeen Miscellaneous Poems II 1064

Headnote: "Composed on the theme of expressing one's grievances through the haze"
This poem was composed on the theme "expressing one's grievances through the haze." Would I have passed the spring without cares, if this were a haze that shut away the sorrowful world, he says. Spring haze veils all around it, but it does not shut out the world's troubles. Using the haze, he expresses in a counterfactual form the gloom of a heart that does not clear even when spring has come.
The author, "Minamoto no Nakamasa," was a son of Minamoto no Yoritsuna and the father of Minamoto no Yorimasa.
In 1059 of this book the poet surmises, "does the haze on the peaks shut it away," and praises the ease of life in a mountain village. This poem instead supposes "if only the haze shut away the sorrowful world" and laments that in fact it does not, so the two form a pair around the haze that divides.

First line, "omou koto": "the things I brood on."
Second line, "nakute ya haru o": "ya" is an interrogative binding particle closing with "mashi" in the third line.
Third line, "sugusamashi": "mashi" is the counterfactual auxiliary answering "seba" in the fifth line, "would I have passed it?" The poem pauses here, in inversion with the lower verse.
Fourth line, "ukiyo hedatsuru": "that shuts away the sorrowful world." It shares the pairing of the sorrowful world and the haze with "ukiyo o ba mine no kasumi ya hedatsuran" in the first three lines of 1059 of this book.
Fifth line, "kasumi nariseba": "se" is the irrealis of the past auxiliary "ki," and with "ba" it states a condition contrary to fact, "if only it were such a haze."
Author: Minamoto no Nakamasa
Source: Senzai Wakashu
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