Yamabuki no nioeru imo ga hanezu iro no akamo no sugata ime ni mietsutsu

山吹のにほへる妹がはねず色の
赤裳の姿夢に見えつつ

Roma-ji: Yamabuki no nioeru imo ga hanezu iro no akamo no sugata ime ni mietsutsu
English Translation: Like the yamabuki
glowing radiant, my love
in her hanezu-hued
scarlet skirt, her lovely form
keeps appearing in my dreams
Meaning: My beloved, radiant as the yamabuki flowers, appears again and again in my dreams, dressed in her skirt of scarlet hanezu hue.
Commentary: Book Eleven Love Poems Ancient and Modern I 2786

Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "Expressing Feelings through Things"
A man tells how his beloved, shining like the yamabuki flower, appears to him again and again in dreams, clad in a skirt of hanezu red. The image of a love he cannot meet is drawn vividly through layered colours: the yellow of yamabuki, the pale crimson of hanezu, and the red of her skirt.
This is the last poem in the sequence on flowers, and it names two flowers, yamabuki and hanezu. Whereas the preceding poems likened love itself to flowers, this one lays the colours of flowers over the figure of the beloved and sings of her image seen in dreams.
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, "yamabuki no": "like the yamabuki flower," leading to "nioeru," which expresses radiant beauty. Some regard it as a pillow word.
Second line, "nioeru imo ga": "my beloved, glowing in beauty." "Niou" describes colour shining beautifully, and "ru" is the attributive of the continuative auxiliary "ri."
Third line, "hanezu iro no": "of hanezu hue," the pale crimson of the hanezu flower. The line has one syllable too many.
Fourth line, "akamo no sugata": "her form in a scarlet skirt." "Mo" is a garment women wore from the waist down; together with "hanezu iro" in the third line, it paints her attire in rich colour.
Fifth line, "ime ni mietsutsu": "appearing in my dreams again and again." "Tsutsu" expresses repetition and continuation, and the poem breaks off here, leaving the lingering sense of an image that keeps returning.
Source: Manyoshu
Prev Poem: Saku hana wa suguru toki aredo aga kouru kokoro no uchi wa yamu toki mo nashi
Next Poem: Ametsuchi no yoriai no kiwami tama no o no taeji to omou imo ga atari mitsu