Kozo miteshi aki no tsukuyo wa wataredomo aimishi imo wa iya toshisakaru

去年見てし秋の月夜は渡れども
相見し妹はいや年離る

Roma-ji: Kozo miteshi aki no tsukuyo wa wataredomo aimishi imo wa iya toshisakaru
English Translation: The autumn moon
that we looked upon last year
crosses the sky again,
but she who gazed on it with me
grows ever farther with the years.
Meaning: The autumn moon we saw last year crosses the sky once more, yet she who watched it with me drifts ever farther away as the years go by.
Commentary: Book Two Elegies 214

Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "Poems composed by Kakinomoto no Asomi Hitomaro, weeping tears of blood in grief, after the death of his wife, three short poems of the poem in another text"
The autumn moon they watched together last year crosses the sky again this year, while the wife who watched it with him grows more distant with each year; the poem sets the ever-returning moon against the lost wife.
These elegies, composed by Hitomaro after his wife's death in grief so deep that he wept tears of blood, are known as the poems of tearful lament. Two short poems are appended to each of two long poems, and a long poem with three short poems from another text is recorded as well. The first long poem, 207, mourns a wife in Karu whom he had loved in secret; the second, 210, mourns a wife who died leaving a small child. This is the first of the three short poems appended to 213, the long poem from another text, and it differs from 211 only in having "wataredomo" in place of "teraseredo" in the third line.
The author, Kakinomoto no Hitomaro, was a court poet active in the reigns of Empress Jitō and Emperor Monmu. A master of the long poem and the elegy, he is the representative poet of the Man'yōshū and was later revered as the Saint of Poetry.

The first line, "kozo miteshi," means "that we saw last year," the same first line as 211.
The second line, "aki no tsukuyo wa," means "the autumn moon."
The third line, "wataredomo," means "though it crosses the sky." Against "teraseredo" in 211, it focuses on the moon's motion, suggesting the ceaseless turning of time.
The fourth line, "aimishi imo wa," means "my wife who saw it with me."
The final line, "iya toshisakaru," means "grows ever farther year by year," the same final line as 211.
Author: Kakinomoto no Hitomaro
Source: Manyoshu
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