Poet Ariwara no Narihira, who wrote poem 17 (ちは) in the Hyakunin Isshu, and quite possibly the best poem on cherry blossoms ever, is also the model for the protagonist of the Ise Stories. In it, he delivers yet another banger of a cherry blossom poem. This is episode 29 of the Ise Stories:

Back then, when called to attend the cherry-blossom jubilee held at the reside of the Heir Apparent‘s mother [he recited the following]:

Original Japanese	Romanization	Translation
花にあかぬ	Hana ni akanu	I had always known
嘆きはいつも	Nageki wa itsumo	what sadness it means to love
せしかども	Seshikadomo	blossoms such as these,
今日の今宵に	Kyo no koyoi ni	but the evening of this day,
似る時はなし	Niru toki wa nashi	resembles no other time.

This is a really good cherry blossom poem, but Professors Mostow and Tyler explain that there is more to the story too. The heir apparent, later the ill-fated Emperor Yozei (poem 13, つく) in the Hyakunin Isshu, had a mother named Fujiwara no Takaiko. And within the Ise Stories, episode 6, there is a famous anecdote where:

Back then there was this man. Year after year he courted a lady he was unlikely ever to win, until at last he managed to abduct her under cover of darkness.

Translation by Mostow and Tyler

Later, the pair take cover in a storehouse during a bad rainstorm, but while he stood guard outside, a demon came and swallowed her, losing her forever. The episode then explains that the demon was in fact Takaiko’s brothers who brought her back to the capitol. Thus, it’s strongly implied in the story that Narihira and Takaiko briefly eloped before she was found by her family and brought home.

The poem above was composed after Takaiko was already wed to Emperor Seiwa and had given birth to a son, Yozei. It’s not hard to imagine that Narihira maybe still had feelings for Takaiko, though modern scholarship seems to reject this, and suggest it is simply polite felicitations.

Was this a hidden love poem, or a really colorful description of cherry blossoms? Who knows?