Yuku kawa no suginishi hito no taoraneba urabure tateri miwa no hibara wa

行く川の過ぎにし人の手折らねば
うらぶれ立てり三輪の桧原は

Roma-ji: Yuku kawa no suginishi hito no taoraneba urabure tateri miwa no hibara wa
English Translation: Like a flowing stream
those who are gone and past
break no sprays now,
so it stands drooping in grief—
the cypress wood of Miwa
Meaning: Since those who have passed away like a flowing river no longer break its sprays, it stands there forlorn—the cypress forest of Miwa.
Commentary: Book Seven Miscellaneous Poems 1119

Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "On Leaves"
Because those who have passed away no longer break its sprays, the cypress forest of Miwa stands dejected. Personifying the forest, the poet entrusts his grief for the dead to the landscape.
It forms a pair with the preceding poem: where that poem breaks a spray while joining the ancients to himself, this one sings of the loneliness of a forest no one comes to break. The preceding poem's fourth line, "in Miwa's cypress forest," answers this poem's last line, "the cypress wood of Miwa," binding the two together.
The left note says, "The two poems above come from the Kakinomoto no Hitomaro Collection."

The first line uses "yuku kawa no," a flowing river, as a pillow word for "sugi" (to pass).
The second line, "those who are gone and past," means those who have gone by, those who have died.
The third line, "break no sprays now," is a conditional of fact: "since they do not break them."
In the fourth line, "urabure" means for the heart to wilt. The forest is pictured as a person standing forlorn, and the poem pauses here.
The final line gives the subject by inversion, "the cypress wood of Miwa," corresponding to the fourth line of the preceding poem.
Source: Manyoshu
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