Nodoka nare kokoro o sara ni tsukushitsutsu hana yue ni koso haru wa machishika

のどかなれ心をさらに尽くしつつ
花ゆゑにこそ春は待ちしか

Roma-ji: Nodoka nare kokoro o sara ni tsukushitsutsu hana yue ni koso haru wa machishika
English Translation: Heart, be calm at last:
all my heart and more I spent,
exhausting it so,
for the flowers' sake alone
I awaited this spring.
Meaning: Be calm, my heart. It was for the blossoms' sake alone that I waited for spring, spending my heart and more.
Commentary: Spring Poems 82

Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "When composing many poems on cherry blossoms"
Now that the blossoms are open, the poet calls on his own heart to be calm and savor them. It was for these very flowers, he reminds himself, that he waited for spring with all his heart.
Recalling the cares of waiting, the poet soothes a heart that still cannot settle even before the blossoms that have finally opened. The poem traces a movement of the heart that links the poems on waiting for blossoms with those on viewing them.

First line, “nodoka nare”: the imperative of nodoka nari, be calm, an address to one's own heart with a break after the first line.
Second line, “kokoro o sara ni”: my heart all the more.
Third line, “tsukushitsutsu”: while exhausting it, the anxious waiting for the blossoms.
Fourth line, “hana yue ni koso”: the emphatic koso forms a kakari-musubi with shika in the fifth line.
Fifth line, “haru wa machishika”: I waited for spring, ending in shika, the perfective form of the past ki, giving the reason for the first line's appeal.
Author: Saigyō
Source: Sankashu
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