Haru no kuru yo no ma no kaze no ikanareba kesa fuku ni shimo kōri tokuramu - Kinyo Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

春の来る夜の間の風のいかなれば
今朝吹くにしも氷解くらむ

Roma-ji: Haru no kuru yo no ma no kaze no ikanareba kesa fuku ni shimo kōri tokuramu
English Translation: The wind that blew in
through the night when spring arrived,
what wind can it be,
that just this morning blowing
it should melt the ice away
Meaning: What kind of wind is it, the wind that blew through the night when spring arrived, that only this morning it has melted the ice?
Commentary: Book One Spring Poems 5

On the morning of the first day of spring, the poet marvels that ice has melted under a wind that changed overnight. In the wind of the one night that divides the seasons, he feels the power of spring.
The idea that spring's wind melts the ice goes back to the Kokinshū; in this book the theme of thawing ice is repeated here after poems 1 and 4.

First line, 'haru no kuru', means spring arriving, pointing to the night of the turn of spring.
Second line, 'yo no ma no kaze no', is the wind that blew during the night, capturing the single night when winter gives way to spring.
Third line, 'ikanareba', means for what reason, and works with ramu in the final line to ask the cause.
Fourth line, 'kesa fuku ni shimo', uses the emphatic shimo to stress that the wind has blown only this very morning.
Final line, 'kōri tokuramu', like 'may be melting on this day' in poem 1, marks spring's arrival by the thawing ice; ramu guesses at the cause.
Source: Kinyo Wakashu
Prev Poem: Tsurara ishi hosotanigawa no tokeyukeba minakami yori ya haru wa tatsuramu
Next Poem: Itsushika to haru no shirushi ni tatsu mono wa ashita no hara no kasumi nari keri