Tachibana wa tokohana ni moga hototogisu sumu to kinakaba kikanu hi nakemu

橘は常花にもが霍公鳥
住むと来鳴かば聞かぬ日なけむ

Roma-ji: Tachibana wa tokohana ni moga hototogisu sumu to kinakaba kikanu hi nakemu
English Translation: Would that the orange
were a flower ever in bloom!
Then the hototogisu
would come to dwell here and sing,
and no day would pass unheard
Meaning: If only the tachibana were a flower always in bloom! Then the cuckoo would come to make its home and sing, and there would be no day I did not hear it.
Commentary: Book Seventeen 3909

Headnote: "Two poems on the hototogisu"
If only the tachibana bloomed forever, the hototogisu would settle there and sing every day—a poem of longing for the orange blossom and the bird. On the second day of the fourth month of 741, Fumimochi, staying at the old house in Nara, sent it to his elder brother Yakamochi, then serving at the new capital of Kuni; Yakamochi replied with the three poems from 3911.
The poet, Ōtomo no Fumimochi, was a son of Ōtomo no Tabito and the younger brother of Yakamochi. He died young in 746.
The left note reads, "The above were sent on the second day of the fourth month by Ōtomo no Sukune Fumimochi from his house in Nara to his elder brother Yakamochi."

First line, "tachibana wa": the tachibana is a kind of citrus with white blossoms in early summer, often paired with the hototogisu in poetry.
Second line, "tokohana ni moga": tokohana is a flower always in bloom, and moga a particle of wishing—"would it were ever-blooming." The poem pauses here.
Third line, "hototogisu": the cuckoo that arrives and sings in early summer, believed to lodge among the orange blossoms.
Fourth line, "sumu to kinakaba": "if it came to dwell and sing," a hypothetical with ba after the irrealis form.
Fifth line, "kikanu hi nakemu": "there would be no day I did not hear it." Yakamochi's reply, 3911, ends "nakanu hi wa nashi," answering his brother's supposition: in Kuni there is already no day it does not sing.
Author: Ōtomo no Fumimochi
Source: Manyoshu
Prev Poem: Tatanamete Izumi no kawa no mio taezu tsukaematsuramu ōmiyadokoro
Next Poem: Tama ni nuku ōchi o ie ni uetaraba yama hototogisu karezu komu kamo