Haru fukami hana chirikakaru yama no i wa furuki shimizu ni kawazu naku nari

春深み花散りかかる山の井は
古き清水にかはづ鳴くなり

Roma-ji: Haru fukami hana chirikakaru yama no i wa furuki shimizu ni kawazu naku nari
English Translation: Spring has grown so deep
that the petals scatter down
on the mountain spring,
and in its ancient water
the frogs, I hear, are singing.
Meaning: With spring grown deep, blossoms scatter over the mountain spring, and in its ancient clear water I hear the frogs singing.
Commentary: Spring Poems 94

Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "Composed on falling blossoms"
As spring deepens, the poet hears frogs singing in the old clear water of a mountain spring where blossoms are scattering down. Pairing falling blossoms with the voices of frogs, both late-spring motifs, he depicts a quiet scene by a mountain spring. Kamo no Mabuchi praised the use of the particle wa in yama no i wa as something ordinary poets could not manage.
The Ruijū text gives the third and fourth lines as "in the aged water of the mountain spring," and the Teika text also differs. One character in the third line of the base text is hard to read, and yama no i wa has been adopted on the basis of Mabuchi's comment.

Line 1 opens like 91, "since spring has deepened."
Line 2 means blossoms fall and drift down.
Line 3: yama no i is a mountain spring where water is drawn, singled out by the particle wa that Mabuchi praised.
Line 4 names the pure water that has welled up since long ago.
Line 5: nari infers from sound; the poet hears the frogs. Within the group of falling-blossom poems, it adds a new late-spring motif, the frogs' voices.
Author: Minamoto no Sanetomo
Source: Kinkaishu
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