Natsugoromo tatsuki no yama no hototogisu itsushika nakamu koe o kikabaya

夏衣たつきの山の郭公
いつしか鳴かむ声を聞かばや

Roma-ji: Natsugoromo tatsuki no yama no hototogisu itsushika nakamu koe o kikabaya
English Translation: Summer robes are cut—
on Mount Tatsuki now
the hototogisu:
when at last will it sing out?
Oh, how I long to hear its voice!
Meaning: O cuckoo of Mount Tatsuki, whose name speaks of cutting and wearing summer robes—how soon will you sing? I long to hear your voice.
Commentary: Summer Poems 134

Headnote: "The beginning of summer"
The poet, at the start of summer, waits eagerly for the first call of the hototogisu, longing to hear the voice of a bird that has not yet sung. From "summer robes" he plays on "cutting and wearing" to lead into the name of a mountain, and the poem heads the long run of hototogisu poems in the summer section.
Kamo no Mabuchi marked it with a circle and remarked that, like the Man'yōshū phrase leading from "winding a beloved's sleeve" to Mount Makiki, "summer robes, tachiki" is a good link, but "tatsuki" is not; he suspected the poet wrote tachiki and it was later miscopied. The Ruijū and Teika texts give line 2 as "on Mount Tatsuta."

Line 1, "summer robes," names the light garments of summer, and the idea of cutting and wearing them leads into the next line. The same opening appears in 142, where summer's beginning is likewise marked by clothing.
Line 2 is a pivot word, meaning both "cut and wear" and the mountain's name; the mountain's location is uncertain.
Line 3 sets down the hototogisu, emblem of summer, as a noun of address. Many hototogisu poems follow in this section. It answers poem 131 of Book One, which had not heard the bird in spring, by now awaiting its voice in summer.
Line 4: itsushika means "soon," and mu here expresses a conjecture tinged with wishing.
Line 5: the final particle baya expresses the poet's own wish, "how I long to hear it."
Author: Minamoto no Sanetomo
Source: Kinkaishu
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