Yama no ha ni ajimura sawaki yuku naredo ware wa sabushie kimi ni shi araneba

山の端にあぢ群騒き行くなれど
我れは寂しゑ君にしあらねば

Roma-ji: Yama no ha ni ajimura sawaki yuku naredo ware wa sabushie kimi ni shi araneba
English Translation: Along the hill's ridge
teal flocks go clamoring by,
so I hear, and yet
lonely am I, lonely still,
for none of them is you
Meaning: Flocks of teal go clamoring along the ridge of the hills, I hear, and yet how lonely I am, for none of them is you.
Commentary: Book Four Love Poems 486

Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "Envoy"
This is the envoy attached to the long poem (485) attributed to the Okamoto Emperor. Flocks of teal fly clamoring along the ridge of the hills, yet the poet is lonely because none of them is the one she longs for. It takes up the image in the long poem that likened the crowds coming and going across the land to "the flocks of teal passing," and sharpens the contrast between bustle and solitude.
The left note observes that there were two emperors of an Okamoto Palace, the one at Takechi and the later one, so it is unclear who "the Okamoto Emperor" is.
The author, the Okamoto Emperor, is a sovereign who held court at the Okamoto Palace in Asuka; it may be Emperor Jomei or Empress Kōgyoku (Saimei), and there is no settled view. Because the poem speaks from a woman's standpoint, many favor Empress Kōgyoku (Saimei).

First line, "Along the hill's ridge," points to where the hills meet the sky, setting a distant scene and lifting the eye upward.
Second line, "teal flocks go clamoring by," pictures a flock of teal crying out. The word "flocks of teal" from the long poem returns in the envoy and stresses the bustle of the crowd.
Third line, "so I hear, and yet," uses the hearsay auxiliary nari, telling us the poet knows of the flock's passing by its cries; do marks the concession.
Fourth line, "lonely am I, lonely still," ends in the exclamatory particle e and firmly declares her solitude against the teeming flock. The poem breaks after this line.
Fifth line, "for none of them is you," repeats a phrase from near the close of the long poem, binding envoy to long poem. The emphatic shi and the causal -neba supply the reason for her loneliness, placed afterward by inversion.
Author: The Okamoto Emperor
Source: Manyoshu
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