Omoedomo Iwade no yama ni toshi o hete kuchi ya hatenan tani no umoregi - Senzai Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

思へどもいはでの山に年を経て
朽ちや果てなん谷の埋もれ木

Roma-ji: Omoedomo Iwade no yama ni toshi o hete kuchi ya hatenan tani no umoregi
English Translation: Though I love, unspoken,
on the Mountain of Iwade
the years go by, and
will I rot away at last,
a log sunk deep in the vale?
Meaning: Though I love, I never speak, and so the years pass on Mount Iwade, the mountain of silence. Will I at last rot away like a log buried deep in its valley?
Commentary: Book Eleven Love Poems I 651

Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "Composed as a love poem when hundred-poem sequences were presented"
Like the preceding poem, a love poem from the Kyūan sequences. Though I love, I do not speak, he says; the years pass on Mount Iwade, and will I rot away like a log buried in the valley? Joining the famed Mount Iwade of Michinoku with "iwade," "without speaking," he likens himself, passing year after year without confessing and decaying unknown, to a log sunk deep in the bottom of a valley.
The author, "Akisuke, Master of the Capital Office of the Left," is Fujiwara no Akisuke. The son of Master of the Office of Palace Repairs Fujiwara no Akisue, he served as Master of the Capital Office of the Left and compiled the Shika Wakashū at the command of Retired Emperor Sutoku. He laid the foundations of the poetic learning of the Rokujō Fujiwara house and has a poem in the Ogura Hyakunin Isshu.
Poem 667 of this book sings of the same famed place, "Iwade no yama no tani no shitamizu"; this poem gives the buried log of the valley and 667 the hidden stream of the valley, both entrusting a secret love to something hidden in a valley. It also shares with "umoremizu" in 661 the idea of things buried from sight.

First line, "omoedomo": "domo" is an adversative conjunctive particle, "though I love." It is the same as the first line of 663.
Second line, "Iwade no yama ni": "iwade" combines Mount Iwade, a famed place in Michinoku, and "iwade," "without speaking." It is the same famed place as "Iwade no yama no" in the fourth line of 667.
Third line, "toshi o hete": "as the years pass."
Fourth line, "kuchi ya hatenan": "ya" is an interrogative binding particle, and "nan" is the irrealis of the perfective "nu" with the attributive of the conjectural "mu," "will I rot away entirely?" The poem pauses here.
Fifth line, "tani no umoregi": "umoregi" is wood long buried in earth or water, a figure for one who ends unknown to the world. It ends on a noun.
Author: Fujiwara no Akisuke
Source: Senzai Wakashu
Prev Poem: Ōkata no koi suru hito ni kikinarete yo no tsune no to ya kimi omouran
Next Poem: Takasago no onoe no matsu ni fuku kaze no oto ni nomi ya wa kikiwataru beki