Kokonoe no kumoi ni haru zo tachinurashi ōuchiyama ni kasumi tanabiku

九重の雲居に春ぞ立ちぬらし
大内山に霞たなびく

Roma-ji: Kokonoe no kumoi ni haru zo tachinurashi ōuchiyama ni kasumi tanabiku
English Translation: Within the ninefold
palace high among the clouds
spring must have risen;
over Ōuchi Mountain
the haze is trailing softly.
Meaning: Spring seems to have arisen in the palace above the clouds—over Mount Ōuchi the haze lies trailing.
Commentary: Spring Poems 2

Headnote: "A poem on the beginning of spring"
The poet infers that spring has come to the imperial palace in the capital from the haze trailing over Mount Ōuchi. Writing from Kamakura, he turns his thoughts to spring at the distant court in Kyoto, and his reverence for the court can be sensed. Kamo no Mabuchi marked the poem with a circle and called it a work of the poet's middle period.
In the Ruijū text the headnote of this poem reads "Composed on the spirit of the beginning of spring."

Line 1, kokonoe no ("ninefold"), refers to the imperial palace with its many layers of gates.
Line 2: kumoi ("among the clouds") also means the court, and the particle zo points emphatically to spring. Following the preceding poem, 1, where spring comes from the "plains of heaven," here spring is seen in the palace above the clouds.
Line 3, "must have risen": nu marks completion and rashi a grounded inference; it concludes the zo construction, and the poem pauses here.
Line 4: Mount Ōuchi lies north of Ninnaji in Kyoto, and the name was also used figuratively for the palace.
Line 5, "the haze is trailing," gives the scene on which the inference rests. The same closing appears in 11 and 12, impressing haze upon the reader as the emblem of spring's beginning.
Author: Minamoto no Sanetomo
Source: Kinkaishu
Prev Poem: Kesa mireba yama mo kasumite hisakata no ama no hara yori haru wa kinikeri
Next Poem: Yamazato ni iei wa subeshi uguisu no naku hatsukoe no kikamahoshisa ni