Kakikirashi ame no furu yo o hototogisu nakite yuku nari aware sono tori

かき霧らし雨の降る夜をほととぎす
鳴きて行くなりあはれその鳥

Roma-ji: Kakikirashi ame no furu yo o hototogisu nakite yuku nari aware sono tori
English Translation: Clouding all the sky,
through the night of falling rain
the hototogisu
sings, it seems, as it flies by;
ah, how dear to me that bird!
Meaning: On a night when clouds fill the sky and rain is falling, a hototogisu seems to pass by singing. Ah, how dear that bird is!
Commentary: Book Nine Miscellaneous Poems 1756

Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "A poem on the hototogisu, with tanka"; envoy
Hearing a hototogisu singing as it flies by on a clouded, rainy night, the speaker is moved by tender feeling for the bird. Only its voice passes through the darkness, and the poem is filled with quiet emotion.
This is the envoy to the long poem 1755 in this book. The long poem describes the hototogisu, hatched alone in a bush warbler's nest and singing like neither father nor mother, delights in its ringing voice as it comes from fields of deutzia flowers, and bids it not to go far but to dwell in the orange tree of the speaker's garden. It is known for depicting the bird's habit of laying eggs in the warbler's nest.
The author, Takahashi no Mushimaro, was a poet of the early Nara period who is thought to have served under Fujiwara no Umakai when Umakai was governor of Hitachi. He excelled at long poems on local legends and the landscape of the eastern provinces. This poem is taken from the Mushimaro Collection, which is thought to consist mainly of his own works.

The first line, "clouding all the sky," uses the prefix kaki.
The second line, "through the night of falling rain," is linked by o with a concessive sense.
The third line, "the hototogisu," names the bird that heralds summer, loved for singing even at night.
The fourth line, "sings, it seems, as it flies by," uses nari, an inference based on sound, showing that only the voice is heard. The poem pauses here.
The final line, "ah, how dear to me that bird," opens with the interjection aware and ends on a noun. Like the long poem's close, "dwell on there, O bird," it ends with the word tori.
Author: Takahashi no Mushimaro (from the Mushimaro Collection)
Source: Manyoshu
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