Makibashira futoki kokoro wa arishikado kono aga kokoro shizumekanetsu mo

真木柱太き心はありしかど
この我が心鎮めかねつも

Roma-ji: Makibashira futoki kokoro wa arishikado kono aga kokoro shizumekanetsu mo
English Translation: Stout as a pillar
of fine cypress was my heart,
or so it once was—
yet now this heart of mine
I cannot bring to calm.
Meaning: My heart was once as stout as a pillar of fine cypress, yet now I cannot calm this heart of mine.
Commentary: Book Two Elegies 190

Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "Twenty-three poems composed in grief by the attendants of the Prince's palace"
He had believed his heart as stout as a pillar of fine cypress, but now he cannot calm it; the poem openly confesses his turmoil.
According to the headnote, these are twenty-three poems composed in grief by the attendants who served in Prince Kusakabe's palace. A left note, citing the Nihon shoki, records that the prince died in the fourth month of the third year of Empress Jitō's reign (689). The sequence takes up, scene by scene, the laments of the attendants: the garden and ponds of the Shima Palace bereft of their master, and the night watches they kept on the hills of Mayumi and Sada where the prince lay in state. This is the twentieth poem of the sequence.
The authors were the attendants who served in Prince Kusakabe's palace, and their individual names have not come down to us. Toneri were officials who served close to the Emperor and members of the imperial family as guards and aides. One theory holds that Kakinomoto no Hitomaro composed the poems in the attendants' voice, but this is not settled.

The first line, "makibashira," a pillar of fine timber such as cedar or cypress, is a pillow word for futoki, "stout."
The second line, "futoki kokoro wa," means "a firm, unshakable heart."
In the third line, "arishikado," shika is the perfective form of the past ki and do is concessive: though I had one.
The fourth line, "kono aga kokoro," means "this heart of mine now," set against the "stout heart" of the second line.
In the final line, "shizumekanetsu mo," kane means "cannot," tsu is perfective, and mo exclamatory: I cannot calm it.
Source: Manyoshu
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