Furusu utoku tani no uguisu narihateba ware ya kawarite nakan to suran

古巣うとく谷の鶯なり果てば
我やかはりてなかんとすらん

Roma-ji: Furusu utoku tani no uguisu narihateba ware ya kawarite nakan to suran
English Translation: If, estranged at last
from its old nest, the warbler
leaves the valley so,
will I then take up its place
and cry out the way it sang?
Meaning: If the valley warbler grows wholly estranged from its old nest, must I then take its place and cry, both singing and weeping?
Commentary: Spring Poems 27

Headnote: "When the warbler's voice was no longer heard in the valley where I lived"
According to the headnote, this poem was composed when the warbler's voice could no longer be heard in the valley where the poet lived, and four poems follow on this theme. If the warbler stays away from its old nest for good, the poet wonders, will he have to take its place and do the singing himself?
Naku is a pivot word for the warbler's singing and a person's weeping, presenting with gentle humour the poet in tears at the warbler's departure. It conveys how dear a comfort the warbler's song was to someone living in a hut in the valley.

First line, “furusu utoku”: growing distant from the old nest, a line with an extra syllable.
Second line, “tani no uguisu”: the warbler of the valley, said to dwell there and go out to the villages in spring.
Third line, “narihateba”: if it should become wholly so, a conditional formed with ba on the irrealis.
Fourth line, “ware ya kawarite”: I in its place; the interrogative ya forms a kakari-musubi with ran in the fifth line.
Fifth line, “nakan to suran”: naku is a pivot word meaning both the warbler's singing and human weeping, and the conjectural ran closes on the loneliness of losing the warbler.
Author: Saigyō
Source: Sankashu
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