Hakanakute kurenu to omou o onozukara ariake no tsuki ni aki zo nokoreru

はかなくて暮れぬと思ふをおのづから
有明の月に秋ぞ残れる

Roma-ji: Hakanakute kurenu to omou o onozukara ariake no tsuki ni aki zo nokoreru
English Translation: Fleeting, all too soon,
I had thought it had come to its end,
and yet, unlooked for,
in the moon that lingers at dawn
autumn still remains.
Meaning: I thought autumn had ended, all too fleetingly—yet, unlooked for, autumn still lingers in the dawn moon.
Commentary: Autumn Poems 303

Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "Composed at the end of autumn"
The poet had thought autumn had ended all too fleetingly, yet looking up he finds its lingering traces in the moon remaining in the dawn sky. The poem holds both regret at autumn's departure and joy at discovering a little autumn that remains.
The Ruijū text places this poem among "poems found in another manuscript and in printed editions."

Line 1, hakanakute, means "all too fleetingly, in vain."
Line 2: nu marks completion, and o is a concessive conjunction, "though I thought it had ended."
Line 3, onozukara, is hypermetric and here means "unexpectedly, by chance." Whereas onozukara in 189 sang of autumn coming round of its own accord, here it sings of autumn unexpectedly remaining.
Line 4, "in the dawn moon," is hypermetric, referring to the moon still in the sky at daybreak.
Line 5 concludes the binding particle zo with ru, the attributive of the resultative ri. In the late autumn when fields and hills took on color in the two preceding poems, it finds in the dawn moon the traces of autumn still remaining.
Author: Minamoto no Sanetomo
Source: Kinkaishu
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