Aimite wa omokakusayuru mono kara ni tsugite mimaku no hoshiki kimi kamo

相見ては面隠さゆるものからに
継ぎて見まくの欲しき君かも

Roma-ji: Aimite wa omokakusayuru mono kara ni tsugite mimaku no hoshiki kimi kamo
English Translation: When we meet, I find
I hide my face despite myself,
and yet even so,
I want to keep on seeing you,
you whom I long for so
Meaning: Whenever we meet I find myself hiding my face in shyness, and yet you are the one I long to go on looking at without end.
Commentary: Book Eleven Love Poems Ancient and Modern I 2554

Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "Expressing One's Feelings Directly"
When they meet, the speaker hides her face in shyness despite herself, and yet the beloved is someone she wishes to keep on gazing at. From a woman's standpoint, the poem frankly expresses a fresh love mingling bashfulness and yearning.
The phrase "tsugite mimaku" also appears in poem 2559 of this book as "tsugite mimaku shi hoshi mo," so poems wishing to meet again and again are placed near each other. The opening "aimite wa" is also the first line of poem 2567 in this book, and the two correspond as poems on the heart after meeting.
The author is unknown. The anonymous poems of Book Eleven gather love poems by people whose names have not come down to us.

First line, "aimite wa": "when we meet." "Aimiru" means a man and woman meeting, and the particle "wa" singles out the moment of meeting.
Second line, "omokakusayuru": "I hide my face despite myself." "Yuru" is the attributive form of the spontaneous auxiliary "yu," expressing something that happens naturally out of shyness.
Third line, "mono kara ni": a conjunctive particle meaning "though," linking the bashfulness to the feeling of the second half.
Fourth line, "tsugite mimaku no": "to keep on seeing." "Mimaku" is the nominalized form with the auxiliary "mu," meaning "wishing to see."
Fifth line, "hoshiki kimi kamo": "you whom I long to see." The exclamatory particle "kamo" is added to the noun "kimi," closing the poem with affection.
Source: Manyoshu
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