Omou koto nakute zo mimashi Yosa no umi no Ama no Hashidate miyako nariseba - Senzai Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

思ふことなくてぞ見まし与謝の海の
天の橋立都なりせば

Roma-ji: Omou koto nakute zo mimashi Yosa no umi no Ama no Hashidate miyako nariseba
English Translation: Free of every care
I would gaze upon it,
the Yosa Sea's
Bridge of Heaven,
if only it were in the capital
Meaning: I could gaze on it free of every care, if only the Bridge of Heaven on the Yosa Sea were in the capital.
Commentary: Book Eight Travel Poems 504

Headnote: "Composed when I went to Tango Province"
Composed when the poet went down to Tango Province. It is said to date from when her husband, Ōe no Masahira, became Governor of Tango and she went with him to his post. If the Bridge of Heaven on the Yosa Sea were in the capital, she says, I could gaze on it free of care. Acknowledging the beauty of the famous sight, she cannot truly enjoy it while far from the capital, and so voices her longing for home.
The author, "Akazome Emon," was the daughter of Akazome no Tokimochi. The wife of the scholar Ōe no Masahira, she served Rinshi, wife of Fujiwara no Michinaga, and their daughter, Empress Shōshi. She is one of the Thirty-Six Poetic Immortals of the Middle Ages and has a poem in the Ogura Hyakunin Isshu.

First line, "omou koto": "cares," what weighs on the mind.
Second line, "nakute zo mimashi": the emphatic "zo" and the counterfactual "mashi," which closes the "zo" in its attributive form, "I would gaze free of care." The poem pauses here.
Third line, "Yosa no umi no": the Yosa Sea in Tango, which the Bridge of Heaven divides into inner and outer waters. The line has an extra syllable.
Fourth line, "Ama no Hashidate": a sandbar stretching across the Yosa Sea, a poetic place famed for its rows of pines.
Fifth line, "miyako nariseba": "se" is the irrealis of the past "ki," forming with "ba" a counterfactual condition, "if it were in the capital," inverted with the second line. Poem 501 of this book also uses a counterfactual, "mimashi ya wa"; where 501 sings of a sight seen only because of travel, this poem says that being a traveler keeps her from enjoying a famous sight.
Author: Akazome Emon
Source: Senzai Wakashu
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