Yo o samumi kawase ni ukabu mizu no awa no kieaenu hodo ni kōri shinikeri

夜を寒み川瀬に浮かぶ水の泡の
消えあへぬ程に氷しにけり

Roma-ji: Yo o samumi kawase ni ukabu mizu no awa no kieaenu hodo ni kōri shinikeri
English Translation: So cold is the night
that the foam upon the water
floating in the shallows,
before it can vanish quite,
has frozen where it lies.
Meaning: The night is so cold that the foam floating on the river shallows froze before it could even vanish.
Commentary: Winter Poems 331

Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "Frost late at night"
The night is so bitter that the foam floating in the river shallows froze before it had time to vanish. The poet portrays a cold so severe that even foam, the very emblem of things that quickly disappear, freezes before it can fade.

Line 1 uses the pattern o … mi to show cause, "because the night is cold." Poem 354 opens with the same line.
Line 2 means "floating in the river shallows."
Line 3 is hypermetric, naming the foam, sung as something that vanishes in an instant.
Line 4 means "before it could wholly vanish."
Line 5 means "it has frozen," with the exclamatory keri. Poems 334 and 335 end with the same line, so scenes of freezing follow one another.
Author: Minamoto no Sanetomo
Source: Kinkaishu
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