Ashita wa umibe ni asarishi yūsareba yamato e koyuru kari shi tomoshimo

朝は海辺にあさりし夕されば
大和へ越ゆる雁し羨しも

Roma-ji: Ashita wa umibe ni asarishi yūsareba yamato e koyuru kari shi tomoshimo
English Translation: In the morning hours
foraging along the shore,
and when evening comes
crossing over to Yamato—
how I envy the wild geese
Meaning: In the morning they forage along the shore, and when evening comes they cross over the hills to Yamato—how I envy those wild geese.
Commentary: Book Six Miscellaneous Poems 954

Headnote: "A poem by Prince Kashiwade"
This poem envies the wild geese that forage along the shore in the morning and in the evening cross the hills home to Yamato. In the geese that move freely between the shore and Yamato from morning to evening, the poet sets his own longing for home as one who, away on a journey, cannot return to Yamato.
The left note reads, "The year of composition of the above poem is not clear, but it is placed here because it is of a similar kind," so although its date is unknown, it is arranged after the poems on the progress to Naniwa because its content resembles them. The shore is thought to be that of Naniwa, and the sense that Yamato lies just beyond the hills of Ikoma or Tatsuta makes the envy of the geese all the keener.
The poet, Prince Kashiwade, was the son of Prince Nagaya, and his mother was Princess Kibi. In the Nagaya Incident of Jinki 6 (729), he took his own life together with his father.

The phrases "crossing over to Yamato" and "how I envy" are shared with "how I envy it: going up to Yamato, a boat of fair Kumano" in 944 of this book, so that a poem envying a boat bound for Yamato and one envying geese returning to Yamato form a pair, one of the sea and one of the sky.
The first line, "In the morning hours," means "in the morning" and in the original has only four syllables, a line short of its measure. It pairs with "when evening comes" in the third line, marking the passage from morning to evening.
The second line, "foraging along the shore," describes the geese searching for food by the sea during the day. In the original it runs to eight syllables, a hypermetric line.
The third line, "and when evening comes," uses "saru," which refers to a time coming round.
The fourth line, "crossing over to Yamato," means heading over the hills toward Yamato, suggesting the mountains that lie between the shore and Yamato. It pairs with "the shore" of the second line, so that the poem is built on two contrasts, morning and evening, shore and Yamato.
In the final line, "how I envy the wild geese," "shi" is an emphatic particle and "mo" an exclamatory particle. The poem closes its longing for home with envy of the geese that return freely to Yamato.
Author: Prince Kashiwade
Source: Manyoshu
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