Haru sareba mozu no kusaguki miezu tomo ware wa miyaramu kimi ga atari o ba

春さればもずの草ぐき見えずとも
我れは見やらむ君があたりをば

Roma-ji: Haru sareba mozu no kusaguki miezu tomo ware wa miyaramu kimi ga atari o ba
English Translation: When the spring comes round
and the shrike hides in the grass,
though you are not seen,
still I'll gaze out far toward
the place where you make your home.
Meaning: As the shrike hides away in the grass when spring comes, you are hidden from my sight—yet still I will gaze toward the place where you live.
Commentary: Book Ten Spring Love Poems 1897

Headnote: "Love Expressed Through Birds"
Taking as its preface the way the shrike hides in the grass in spring and cannot be seen, this poem vows to keep gazing toward the place where the beloved lives, even though the beloved cannot be seen. Its headnote is "Love Expressed Through Birds." The single-hearted longing for someone unseen is overlaid on a bird hidden in the grass. Whereas the bird poems of the miscellaneous section rejoiced in birdsong, here in the love poems the unseen bird evokes the absence of a lover.

The first line, "when spring comes," marks the season.
The second line, "the shrike's hiding in the grass," draws on the observation that the shrike, conspicuous in autumn, hides in the grass in spring. The upper lines form a preface leading into "unseen."
In the third line, "miezu tomo," "tomo" marks a concessive supposition: even if unseen.
In the fourth line, "ware wa miyaramu," "miyaru" means to gaze into the distance and "mu" expresses intention.
In the last line, "kimi ga atari o ba," "o ba" is emphatic and the line is hypermetric; by inversion it sets the object of the gaze strongly at the end.
Source: Manyoshu
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