Uzue tsuki nanakusa ni koso oinikere toshi o kasanete tsumeru wakana ni

卯杖つき七草にこそ老いにけれ
年を重ねて摘める若菜に

Roma-ji: Uzue tsuki nanakusa ni koso oinikere toshi o kasanete tsumeru wakana ni
English Translation: Leaning on my staff,
through the seven herbs alone
I have grown so old,
year on year as I have gone
plucking young herbs every spring.
Meaning: Leaning now on a staff, it is through the seven herbs that I have grown old, through the young herbs I have picked, year after year.
Commentary: Spring Poems 22

Headnote: "Also on the topic “An old man's young herbs”"
The topic is an old man gathering young herbs. Having picked the seven herbs of the New Year every year, the old man finds that through all those years of gathering he has grown so old he must lean on a staff.
The herb gathering meant to pray for long life instead reminds him of the years piled up, giving the poem both the pathos and the gentle humour of age. The ingenuity lies in overlaying the uzue, a festive New Year staff, with the staff an old man leans on.

First line, “uzue tsuki”: leaning on an uzue, a staff given on the first Day of the Hare in the New Year to ward off evil, here overlaid with an old man's walking staff.
Second line, “nanakusa ni koso”: the emphatic particle koso forms a kakari-musubi with kere in the third line, stressing that it is through the seven herbs.
Third line, “oinikere”: I have grown old, ending in the perfective form kere, with a break after the third line.
Fourth line, “toshi o kasanete”: year upon year, the yearly repetition of herb gathering.
Fifth line, “tsumeru wakana ni”: through the young herbs I have picked, giving in inverted order the cause of growing old.
Author: Saigyō
Source: Sankashu
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