Kashikoki ya mikoto kagafuri asu yuri ya kae ga muta nemu imu nashi ni shite

畏きや命被り明日ゆりや
草がむた寝む妹なしにして

Roma-ji: Kashikoki ya mikoto kagafuri asu yuri ya kae ga muta nemu imu nashi ni shite
English Translation: Awesome and august,
the command I now receive;
from tomorrow on
shall I sleep beside the grass
with no wife to lie with me?
Meaning: Having received the awesome command of my lord, from tomorrow must I sleep with only the grass beside me, without my wife?
Commentary: Book Twenty Frontier Guard Poems 4321

Headnote: "Poems of the frontier guards sent in rotation to the provinces of Tsukushi in the second month of Tenpyō Shōhō 7, year of the wood sheep."
Having received the awesome command, from tomorrow must I sleep beside the grass, without my wife? The poem voices a frontier guard's grief on the eve of departure. According to the headnote, these are poems by guards sent in rotation to Tsukushi in the second month of Tenpyō Shōhō 7 (755), and from here the book gathers frontier guard poems. The left note says that the escort officer of Tōtōmi Province, the clerk Sakamoto no Hitokami, presented eighteen poems on the sixth day of the second month, and seven were recorded after eleven clumsy ones were left out. This is the first of them. Yuri for yori, kae for kaya, and imu for imo are eastern dialect forms, recorded as spoken.
The author, Mononobe no Akimochi, is recorded as a kuni no miyatsuko guard from Nagashimo District in Tōtōmi; nothing more is known of him. Such guards are thought to have come from the families of the provincial chieftains.

The first line, "kashikoki ya," with the exclamatory ya, expresses awe at the sovereign's command.
The second line, "mikoto kagafuri," means "receiving the command upon my head," that is, being called up as a guard.
The third line, "asu yuri ya," uses yuri, a dialect form of yori, "from," and the interrogative ya, resolved by the attributive nemu in the fourth line.
The fourth line, "kae ga muta nemu," uses kae, dialect for kaya, "grass," and muta, "together with," imagining nights in the open.
The closing line, "imu nashi ni shite," is inverted, adding at the end the core of his grief: without my wife.
Author: Mononobe no Akimochi
Source: Manyoshu
Prev Poem: Masurao no yobitateshikaba saoshika no munawake yukamu akino hagihara
Next Poem: Waga tsuma wa itaku koirashi nomu mizu ni kago sae miete yo ni wasurarezu