Hitogoto no shigeki ma moru to awazu araba tsui ni ya kora ga omowasure namu

人言の繁き間守ると逢はずあらば
つひにや子らが面忘れなむ

Roma-ji: Hitogoto no shigeki ma moru to awazu araba tsui ni ya kora ga omowasure namu
English Translation: While people's gossip
is thick, I wait for a lull,
and if we don't meet,
will she at last, my dear girl,
forget even what I look like?
Meaning: If I keep from meeting her, waiting for a lull in people's gossip, will she in the end forget my face?
Commentary: Book Eleven Love Poems Ancient and Modern I 2591

Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "Expressing One's Feelings Directly"
Because people's talk was thick, a man held back from meeting his love until it died down, and he fears she may in the end forget his face. The poem captures the bind between the caution of avoiding meetings for fear of the world's eyes and the dread that staying apart will let her heart drift away.
The grief of being unable to meet for fear of gossip also appears in poem 2586 of this book, "because people's talk is thick," and is close to poem 2606 below, in which the speaker watches anxiously for others' eyes. Love hindered by gossip and watching eyes is a theme that recurs again and again in the love poems of Book Eleven of the Man'yoshu.
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, "hitogoto no": "people's talk." "Hitogoto" is the gossip of the world, presented as an obstacle to love.
Second line, "shigeki ma moru to": "watching for a gap in the thick talk." "Ma moru" means to watch and wait for a chance or an opening.
Third line, "awazu araba": "if we do not meet." The irrealis with "ba" expresses a hypothetical condition.
Fourth line, "tsui ni ya kora ga": "will she at last." The particle "ya" marks a question and is answered by "namu" in the last line. The "ra" of "kora" is a suffix of affection.
Fifth line, "omowasure namu": "forget my face." "Namu" is the perfective "nu" with the conjectural "mu," closing the question begun by "ya" in the fourth line.
Source: Manyoshu
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