Kamunabi no asaji no hara no uruwashimi a ga omou kimi ga koe no shirukeku

神奈備の浅小竹原のうるはしみ
我が思ふ君が声のしるけく

Roma-ji: Kamunabi no asaji no hara no uruwashimi a ga omou kimi ga koe no shirukeku
English Translation: In Kamunabi
the low bamboo grass is fair;
so fine, so lovely,
you whom I hold in my heart,
how clear your voice rings to me
Meaning: As the low bamboo grass of Kamunabi is fair, so fine are you whom I love, and how clearly your voice comes to me.
Commentary: Book Eleven Love Poems Ancient and Modern I 2774

Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "Expressing Feelings through Things"
How clearly the voice of the one I love stands out, never lost among the voices of others: so the speaker sings. The poem plainly conveys a lover's keen sense that the beloved's voice alone can be recognized at once, even from afar.
Like the preceding poem, it is a poem on bamboo, overlaying the pure beauty of the low bamboo grass of a sacred place on the excellence of the beloved. There the bamboo stood for hiding from others' eyes; here the beauty of the bamboo field leads into words of praise for the beloved.
The author is unknown. The anonymous poems of Book Eleven gather the love poems of people whose names have not come down to us.

First line, "kamunabi no": a word for a mountain or grove where a god dwells. It shows the purity of the sacred place and sets off the beauty of the bamboo field.
Second line, "asaji no hara no": "of the field of low bamboo grass." The first two lines form a preface whose beauty leads into "uruwashimi."
Third line, "uruwashimi": "so fine and fair." It is the stem of "uruwashi" with "mi," expressing admiration for the beloved.
Fourth line, "a ga omou kimi ga": "of you whom I love." Running to eight syllables, it unfolds the depth of feeling at a leisurely pace.
Fifth line, "koe no shirukeku": "how clear your voice is." "Shirukeku" is the ku-nominalization of "shirushi," gathered into a noun-like form to end with deep feeling.
Source: Manyoshu
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