Wagimoko o kiki tsuganobe no shinai nebu ware wa shinobazu ma naku shi omoeba

我妹子を聞き都賀野辺のしなひ合歓木
我れは忍びず間なくし思へば

Roma-ji: Wagimoko o kiki tsuganobe no shinai nebu ware wa shinobazu ma naku shi omoeba
English Translation: Hearing of my love,
on the fields of Tsuga stand
silk trees, softly bowed:
I can no longer hold back,
thinking of her without pause
Meaning: Like the gently bending silk trees on the fields of Tsuga, where I go on hearing word of my beloved, I can hold back no longer, for I think of her without a moment's pause.
Commentary: Book Eleven Love Poems Ancient and Modern I 2752

Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "Expressing Feelings through Things"
This love poem says that, thinking of the beloved without pause, the speaker can no longer hold back the feeling. The silk tree softly bending its branches on the open fields serves as the introduction, expressing a love that cannot be restrained.
It is a poem "Expressing Feelings through Things" that speaks through the silk tree, following the pine of the preceding poem with another tree. The silk tree folds its leaves together at night, and in the Man'yoshu it sometimes appears in love poems.
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, "wagimoko o": "of my beloved." Joined to "kiki" in the second line, it speaks of continuing to hear news of the beloved, and "tsugu" (to continue) calls up the place name Tsuga.
Second line, "kiki tsuganobe no": "by the fields of Tsuga, where I keep hearing of her." Where Tsuga field lay is unknown.
Third line, "shinai nebu": a silk tree with gracefully bending branches. The first three lines form an introductory phrase thought to lead, through the similar sounds of "shinai" and "shinobi," to "shinobazu" in the fourth line.
Fourth line, "ware wa shinobazu": "I cannot hold back my feelings." The poem breaks here, inverted with the last line.
Fifth line, "ma naku shi omoeba": "since I think of her without pause." "Shi" is an emphatic particle, and "omoeba," the realis form with "ba," gives the reason afterward for being unable to hold back.
Source: Manyoshu
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