Hito koso ba ōni mo iwame waga kokoda shinou kawara o shime yuu na yume

人こそばおほにも言はめ我がここだ
偲ふ川原を標結ふなゆめ

Roma-ji: Hito koso ba ōni mo iwame waga kokoda shinou kawara o shime yuu na yume
English Translation: Others, it may be,
will speak of it carelessly;
but the riverbanks
I so dearly long for—
never rope them off as yours!
Meaning: Others may speak of it lightly, but the riverbanks I long for so dearly—never stake your claim to them with a sacred rope!
Commentary: Book Seven Miscellaneous Poems 1252

Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "Question and Answer"
Answering the preceding poem's question in the plovers' voice, it says that others may speak carelessly, but begs never to rope off the riverbank the plover loves so dearly and keep it for oneself. It is read as expressing, through the plovers, the wish not to have the woman one loves taken by another man.
It forms a question-and-answer pair with the preceding poem, answering "longing for the riverbanks" with "the riverbanks I so dearly long for." The left note says, "The two poems above are on birds." It comes from the Old Poetry Collection. The poet is unknown.

In the first line, "Others, it may be," the particle "koso" is answered by the perfective "me" in the second line.
The second line, "will speak of it carelessly," closes the "koso ... me" construction with a concessive sense, and the poem pauses here.
The third line, "I so dearly," means "to this great degree."
The fourth line, "the riverbanks I long for," picks up "longing for the riverbanks" from the preceding poem.
In the final line, "shime yuu" means marking something as one's own with a rope, expressing possession in love; "na yume" forbids it absolutely.
Source: Manyoshu
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