Nagusamoru kokoro wa nashi ni kaku nomi shi koi ya wataramu tsuki ni hi ni ke ni

慰もる心はなしにかくのみし
恋ひやわたらむ月に日に異に

Roma-ji: Nagusamoru kokoro wa nashi ni kaku nomi shi koi ya wataramu tsuki ni hi ni ke ni
English Translation: With nothing to soothe
the longing of this heart of mine,
only thus, always,
shall I go on in my love,
month by month and day by day more?
Meaning: With nothing to console my heart, shall I go on loving only like this, more and more with every month and every day?
Commentary: Book Eleven Love Poems Ancient and Modern I 2596

Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "Expressing One's Feelings Directly"
With nothing to lighten the heart, the speaker wonders whether this love will go on growing ever more intense with each passing month and day, and laments the endless pain of love. Foreseeing a love that does not subside but deepens day by day, the poem expresses a heart at a loss.
The original also notes a variant introduced as "a certain book has this poem as," reading "okitsu nami shikite nomi ya mo koi watari namu," which recasts the third line onward as "shall I go on loving without cease, as the waves of the offing break again and again?" Here the main text, "kaku nomi shi koi ya wataramu tsuki ni hi ni ke ni," has been followed.
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, "nagusamoru": "to be consoled." It is thought to be an old conjugated form of "nagusamu," meaning that brooding is lifted.
Second line, "kokoro wa nashi ni": "with no heart that is." It expresses a state in which nothing brings comfort.
Third line, "kaku nomi shi": "only like this." The particle "nomi" is reinforced by the emphatic "shi," stressing the present state of painful love.
Fourth line, "koi ya wataramu": "shall I go on loving?" The particle "ya" marks a question and is answered by the attributive "mu." "Wataru" means to continue through time. The sense breaks after the fourth line.
Fifth line, "tsuki ni hi ni ke ni": "more with each month and each day." "Ke ni" means all the more, and the inversion with the fourth line strongly impresses the ever-growing love.
Source: Manyoshu
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