Yuku haru no katami to omou ni amatsu sora ariake no tsuki wa kage mo taeniki

行く春の形見と思ふにあまつ空
有明の月は影も絶えにき

Roma-ji: Yuku haru no katami to omou ni amatsu sora ariake no tsuki wa kage mo taeniki
English Translation: For departing spring
I thought it a keepsake, yet
in the heavens high
the moon that lingers into dawn—
its light too has disappeared.
Meaning: I had thought of it as a keepsake of departing spring, yet the dawn moon in the wide sky has lost its light as well.
Commentary: Spring Poems 128

Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "Composed on the end of spring"
The poet says that even the dawn moon he had gazed on as a remembrance of departing spring has lost its light. The loneliness of losing one by one the things that might remain as keepsakes of spring is entrusted to the moon fading from the dawn sky.
The Ruijū text reads the second line yuku haru o katami to omou o and the last line kage mo taekeri; the Teika text reads the second line yuku haru no katami to omou and the last line kage mo taeniki. Some characters in the base text are hard to read and have been supplied from the Teika text.

Line 1 names the spring that is passing.
Line 2 is hypermetric at eight syllables; ni is concessive, "though I thought it a keepsake."
Line 3: amatsu sora means the great sky, the expanse of heaven.
Line 4 names the moon that remains in the sky after daybreak, continuing the moons of the spring-night poems.
Line 5: kage is moonlight and niki combines perfective and past—its light too has vanished. Where 99 said only the moonlight remains as of old, here even that light fails, and the last traces of spring are lost.
Author: Minamoto no Sanetomo
Source: Kinkaishu
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