Read it through once

Standing one day before the great cherry-tree which grew in front of the Nijō-in Genji suddenly remembered that this was the season when, under ordinary circumstances, the Flower Feast would have been held at the Emperor’s Palace. ‘This year should’st thou have blossomed with black flowers,’[30] he murmured and, to hide the sudden access of grief that had overwhelmed him, rushed into his chapel and remained there weeping bitterly till it began to grow dark. Issuing at last, he found a flaming sun about to sink beneath the horizon. Against this vivid glow the trees upon the hill stood out with marvellous clearness, every branch, nay every twig distinct. But across the hill there presently drifted a thin filament of cloud, draping the summit with a band of grey. He was in no mood that day to notice sunsets or pretty cloud-effects; but in this half-curtained sky there seemed to him to be a strange significance, and none being by to hear him he recited the verse: ‘Across the sunset hill there hangs a wreath of cloud that garbs the evening as with the dark folds of a mourner’s dress.’