In the hidden cove
how could the heart that I hold
be known in such wise,
as with the punting pole one
sounds and knows the depth below?

Meaning

Like a hidden cove overgrown and unseen, how could you so clearly know the feelings I keep deep within, as one sounds and knows the depth below with a punting pole?

Commentary

Episode Thirty-Three: "The rising tide"

A certain man was visiting a woman in the Ubara district of the province of Settsu.
The woman seemed to think that once the man returned to the capital, he would not come again.

This poem is the woman’s reply to the man’s poem, "From the reed-grown shore as the tide comes rising in and ever increases, so toward you my heart thinks and ever more swells on."
She appeals to him, asking how he could so easily know her feelings; it may also be taken as an invitation to the man.

Source

Ise Monogatari

Other

As in ancient days the rustic weaver’s spool is wound back again, would that there were some means now to make the past the present.
From the reed-grown shore as the tide comes rising in and ever increases, so toward you my heart thinks and ever more swells on.
If I would speak it, I cannot; if I speak not, my breast is troubled, and within a single heart I grieve alone in these days.
The cord of the jewels, twisted of many strands and firmly knotted— though it should once be severed, still I think we shall meet again.

In the hidden cove how could the heart that I hold be known in such wise, as with the punting pole one sounds and knows the depth below?

In the hidden cove
how could the heart that I hold
be known in such wise,
as with the punting pole one
sounds and knows the depth below?