Uchinabiku haru tachinurashi waga kado no yanagi no ure ni uguisu nakitsu

うち靡く春立ちぬらし我が門の
柳の末に鴬鳴きつ

Roma-ji: Uchinabiku haru tachinurashi waga kado no yanagi no ure ni uguisu nakitsu
English Translation: Grasses bending soft,
spring has come, it seems, at last;
by my garden gate,
high on the willow's branch tips
the warbler has sung its song.
Meaning: Spring, when all the grasses bend and sway, seems to have arrived: on the tips of the willow by my gate, a bush warbler has just sung.
Commentary: Book Ten Spring Miscellaneous Poems 1819

Headnote: "On Birds"
Hearing a bush warbler sing at the tip of the willow by his gate, the poet confirms that spring has come. Within the everyday scene of a willow at his own gate, he catches the sure sign of the warbler's voice and rejoices plainly in the season's arrival. It is the first of the group headed "On Birds," and where the preceding poems inferred spring from haze, this one does so from a bird's song, shifting the sign of spring from sight to sound.

The first line, "uchinabiku," is a pillow word attached to "spring." It draws out the season from the image of grasses and trees bending softly in spring.
The second line, "spring seems to have come," uses "nu" for completion and "rashi" for grounded inference. The poem breaks after the second line, and the lower lines give the evidence. It takes the same inferential form as "haru wa kinurashi" in 1814.
The third line, "of my gate," refers to the gate of the poet's own house. It marks the familiar space of daily life, capturing the sign of spring close at hand.
In the fourth line, "on the willow's tips," "ure" means the tips of the branches. It sets a delicate spring scene of willow tips just coming into bud.
In the last line, "the warbler has sung," "tsu" is an auxiliary of completion, marking the sure fact that it has just now sung. This line reveals the ground for the inference of the second line.
Source: Manyoshu
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