Tanabata no wakare o oshimi ama no gawa yasu no watari ni tazu mo nakanamu

七夕の別れを惜しみ天の川
安の渡りに鶴も鳴かなむ

Roma-ji: Tanabata no wakare o oshimi ama no gawa yasu no watari ni tazu mo nakanamu
English Translation: Grieving for the parting
of the stars of Tanabata,
by the Milky Way,
at the crossing-place of Yasu,
may the cranes too cry for them.
Meaning: Grieving for the parting of the Tanabata stars, may the cranes too cry at the Yasu crossing of the River of Heaven.
Commentary: Autumn Poems 198

Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "Tanabata"
When the night of Tanabata ends and the two stars part, the poet wishes that the cranes too would cry at the Yasu crossing of the River of Heaven, sharing the sorrow of the parting. He wishes for the cranes' voices to join in lamenting.
Kamo no Mabuchi remarked that in the Man'yōshū the characters for "Tanabata" were properly used of the night of the seventh day, and that later applying them to the word tanabata is a mistake. In the source text consulted, a character in line 4 is missing and has been supplied from the Teika text's yasu no watari ni.

Line 1, tanabata, here refers to the two stars, the Herdboy and the Weaver Maid.
Line 2 means "grieving for their parting." 196 sang of the boat going to meet, and this poem of the parting, so the beginning and end of the Tanabata night are set side by side.
Line 3 is the same as line 3 of the preceding poem, 197.
Line 4, Yasu no watari, is the crossing of the heavenly river Yasu, where the gods gather in myth.
Line 5: namu wishes that the cranes would cry too. The preceding poem wished the cranes would not cry, this one that they would, so the two form a reversed pair.
Author: Minamoto no Sanetomo
Source: Kinkaishu
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