Kase no yama kodachi o shigemi asa sarazu kinaki toyomosu uguisu no koe

鹿背の山木立を茂み朝さらず
来鳴き響もす鴬の声

Roma-ji: Kase no yama kodachi o shigemi asa sarazu kinaki toyomosu uguisu no koe
English Translation: On Kase Mountain,
since the stands of trees grow thick,
morning after morning,
coming, singing, echoing—
the voice of the bush warbler
Meaning: On Kase Mountain the trees grow thick, and so, every morning without fail, the bush warbler comes and fills the air with its song.
Commentary: Book Six Miscellaneous Poems 1057

Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "Five envoys"
The poem says that because the trees on Kase Mountain grow thick, the bush warbler comes every morning and makes its song ring out. The long poem immediately before it (1053) is the second of the two "poems in praise of the new capital at Kuni"; it praises the palace of Futagi with scenes of wooded mountains, the pure sound of the rushing shallows, the bush warbler of spring and the stag of autumn, and closes with "the great palace site that shall not change even for a hundred ages." This is the fourth of its five envoys; taking up the long poem's "in spring, when the bush warbler comes to sing," it praises the springtime liveliness of the capital through the warbler's voice echoing each morning on the mountain beside the new capital.
The Kuni capital was established by Emperor Shōmu in Yamashiro Province at the end of Tenpyō 12 (740), and the site of its palace lies in what is now Kamo-chō, Kizugawa City, Kyoto Prefecture. Mika-no-hara is the plain of that area, and Futagi is the name of the land around the palace.
The twenty-one poems from 1047 through 1067, the last poem of the book, are covered by the closing left note: "The above twenty-one poems appear in the Tanabe no Sakimaro Collection." According to this note they were taken from the Tanabe no Sakimaro Collection, and they are thought to be Sakimaro's own compositions.
The poet, Tanabe no Sakimaro, was a poet of the mid-Nara period; in Tenpyō 20 (748) he served as a clerk of the Office of Sake Brewing and acted as an envoy for the Minister of the Left, Tachibana no Moroe. He is regarded as one of the representative poets of the last phase of the Man'yōshū, carrying on the tradition of ceremonial long poems at court.

It sings of the same "Kase Mountain" as the preceding poem, 1056: where that poem told of the change by which the mountain became a capital, this poem depicts the scene of trees and birdsong on the mountain. Moreover, while the bush warbler in this poem "comes, singing, echoing," the cuckoo in the next poem, 1058, is said to "not come here," so that a bird that comes and a bird that does not form a pair.
The first line, "On Kase Mountain," opens with the same mountain name as the preceding poem.
The second line, "since the stands of trees grow thick," means "because the trees are dense," the "o ... -mi" construction expressing a reason.
The third line, "morning after morning," means every morning, showing that the warbler's song never fails from day to day.
The fourth line, "coming, singing, echoing," means that the bird comes, sings, and makes its voice resound. It takes up the long poem's "when the bush warbler comes to sing."
The final line, "the voice of the bush warbler," ends on a noun, impressing on the reader the very voice of the warbler ringing through the mountain.
Author: Tanabe no Sakimaro
Source: Manyoshu
Prev Poem: Otomera ga umio kaku to iu kase no yama toki shi yukeba miyako to narinu
Next Poem: Komayama ni naku hototogisu izumigawa watari o tōmi koko ni kayowazu