Tama no o no utsushigokoro ya toshitsuki no yukikawaru made imo ni awazu aramu

玉の緒の現し心や年月の
行きかはるまで妹に逢はずあらむ

Roma-ji: Tama no o no utsushigokoro ya toshitsuki no yukikawaru made imo ni awazu aramu
English Translation: Like a cord of jewels,
with my mind still clear and sound,
could I, while the years
and the months go passing by,
live on and not meet my love?
Meaning: Could I keep my right mind and go on without meeting my beloved until the years and months have passed and changed? I could not.
Commentary: Book Eleven Love Poems Ancient and Modern I 2792

Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "Expressing Feelings through Things"
Could one keep one's right mind and go on not meeting one's beloved while the years and months pass and change? Never: so the poem says. The urgency of a love that cannot stay sane through long days apart is pressed home through a rhetorical question.
In the sequence on the cord of jewels, while the preceding poems sang of the cord breaking or scattering, this one places "tama no o no" before "utsushigokoro," a use unusual within the sequence. The next poem longs to see the beloved without the slightest interval, "aida mo okazu mimaku hori," while this poem dreads not meeting over the span of years and months, so that the two treat the length of time on different scales.
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, "tama no o no": regarded as a pillow word attached to "utsushigokoro," though how it connects is unclear and explanations differ.
Second line, "utsushigokoro ya": "with a sound mind?" "Utsushigokoro" is a clear and steady mind, and the particle "ya" marks a rhetorical question, forming a kakari-musubi construction with "aramu" in the last line.
Third line, "toshitsuki no": "the years and months," the subject of "yukikawaru" that follows.
Fourth line, "yukikawaru made": "until they pass and change," meaning as long a time as for the year to turn and the months to go by.
Fifth line, "imo ni awazu aramu": "could I remain without meeting my love?" "Mu," the conjectural auxiliary in its attributive form, concludes the "ya" of the second line, giving the rhetorical sense that this is impossible.
Source: Manyoshu
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