Toritsunagu hito mo naki no no harukoma wa kasumi ni nomi ya tanabikaruramu - Shika Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

取りつなぐ人もなき野の春駒は
霞にのみやたなびかるらむ

Roma-ji: Toritsunagu hito mo naki no no harukoma wa kasumi ni nomi ya tanabikaruramu
English Translation: With no one to come
and tether them on the moor
the ponies of spring,
are they only in the mist
trailing, drawn along by it?
Meaning: On a moor where no one comes to tether them, are the spring ponies drawn along only by the mist, trailing away within it?
Commentary: Book One Spring Poems 11

The poem shows horses set loose on the spring moor, tied by no one, glimpsed and lost again in the mist. The conceit that untethered ponies seem led only by the mist gives a scene of the peaceful spring fields.
The author is said to be Fujiwara no Moritsune. Here begin three poems on spring ponies.

The first line, "to tether," means tying a horse with a rope, and it echoes in sound the "tanabikaru" of the last line.
The second line, "no one on the moor," shows a wide field with no one to tie the horses, a scene of free grazing.
The third line, "the ponies of spring," names horses let out on the spring moor; with "untethered ponies" in the fourth line of the next poem and "the ponies' looks" in the fourth line of 13, the pony poems continue.
The fourth line, "only in the mist," uses "ya" to ask a question, meaning by the mist alone.
The last line, "trailing, drawn along," closes a kakari-musubi with the "ya" of the fourth line and the attributive of "ramu." Letting "tanabiku" echo the sense of "pulling," the wit lies in seeing the ponies led not by people but by the mist.
Source: Shika Wakashu
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