Yoso nite mo arubeki mono o nakanaka ni nani shika hito ni mutsuresomekemu

よそにてもあるべきものをなかなかに
何しか人に睦れそめけむ

Roma-ji: Yoso nite mo arubeki mono o nakanaka ni nani shika hito ni mutsuresomekemu
English Translation: I might have remained
far off, a stranger to it all;
why, then, so foolishly,
did I begin to grow
so close to the one I love?
Meaning: I could have stayed a stranger, far apart; why, then, did I foolishly begin to grow close to the one I love?
Commentary: Love Poems 452

Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "Among poems on love"
It would have been enough to love from afar, yet having grown close only deepened his suffering; the poet regrets the beginning of love. The poem closes the series headed "Among poems on love."
The Ruijū text places it in the section of poems found in another manuscript and in printed editions.

Line 1 means "even as a stranger."
Line 2 means "it should have been enough," mono o expressing adversative regret.
Line 3 means "all the more foolishly," with an extra syllable.
Line 4 means "why, to that person," shika being intensive.
Line 5 means "did I begin to grow close," kemu conjecturing a past cause. Whereas 407 at the head of the series entrusted love's beginning to blossoms, the end of the series closes in regret at that beginning.
Author: Minamoto no Sanetomo
Source: Kinkaishu
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