Mikumano no ura no hamayū momoe nasu kokoro wa moedo tada ni awanu kamo

み熊野の浦の浜木綿百重なす
心は思へど直に逢はぬかも

Roma-ji: Mikumano no ura no hamayū momoe nasu kokoro wa moedo tada ni awanu kamo
English Translation: At fair Kumano,
the crinum lilies by the bay
hundredfold layered;
so my heart is full of longing,
yet we never meet at all
Meaning: Like the crinum lilies by the bay of Kumano, their leaves wrapped layer upon layer, my heart holds you in a hundred folds of longing, yet we never meet face to face.
Commentary: Book Four Love Poems 496

Headnote: "Four poems by Kakinomoto no Asomi Hitomaro"
With the crinum lilies of the bay at Kumano as its preface, this poem laments that though the poet holds layer upon layer of longing, he cannot meet his beloved face to face. The crinum's leaves, wrapped so many times over that they look like a stalk, stand for the love piled up deep in his heart. It is a vivid image drawn from the landscape of Kii and one of the best known of Hitomaro's love poems.
The author, Kakinomoto no Hitomaro, was a court poet active in the reigns of Empress Jitō and Emperor Monmu; a master of both long and short poems, he was revered by later ages as the saint of poetry.
Much loved in later times, it was included in the Shūishū with the third line reading momoe naru.

First line, "At fair Kumano," uses the honorific prefix mi to praise Kumano in the province of Kii.
Second line, "the crinum lilies by the bay," names the hamayū, a seaside plant of the amaryllis family whose leaves wrap one over another; the first three lines form a preface.
Third line, "hundredfold layered," means layered many times over; nasu, "like," turns from the form of the crinum to the layering of the heart.
Fourth line, "so my heart is full of longing," means though in my heart I long deeply; the concessive do sets the depth of feeling against the fact that they cannot meet.
Fifth line, "yet we never meet at all," uses tada ni, "directly," and the exclamatory kamo, grieving at the gap between a hundredfold longing and the reality of never meeting. It echoes "a hundredfold" at the start of 499, binding the beginning and end of the sequence.
Author: Kakinomoto no Hitomaro
Source: Manyoshu
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