[EN SUB & notes] 鮫島有美子さん「椰子の實」Yashi No Mi (A Coconut) by Shimazaki Touson

(lyrics below)
椰子の實 Yashi No Mi / A Coconut is an archaic-style poem written by author 島崎藤村 (Shimazaki Touson) in the year of Meiji 34 (1901), inspired by a personal anecdote he had heard from his friend and a folkloristics scholar 柳田國男 (Yanagita Kunio).

The melody was composed later in Shouwa 11 (1936) by 大中寅二 Oonaka Toraji.

Sung by 鮫島有美子 Samejima Yumiko
Colloquial EN translation by me

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名も知らぬ遠き島より
流れ寄る椰子の實一つ
na mo shira nu tooki shima yori
nagare yoru yashi no mi hitotsu

From a faraway island
whose name I do not know
came a single coconut
floating on the ocean

故郷の岸を離れて
汝はそも波に幾月
furusato no kishi wo hanare te
nare wa somo nami ni ikutsuki

Washed away from the coast of your home
how many months, coconut,
have you been adrift on the waves?

舊の樹は生ひや茂れる
枝はなほ影をやなせる
moto no ki wa oi ya shigereru
eda wa nao kage wo ya naseru

The tree to which you belonged,
is it lush with thick leaves
and its wide branches still casting shade?

われもまた渚を枕
孤身の浮寢の旅ぞ
ware mo mata nagisa wo makura
hitorimi no ukine no tabi zo

I, too, am a drifter on a lonesome journey
whose pillow is the seaside

浮き寝 (uki-ne), literally float-sleep, refers to a rootless state like a bird's sleep on the water, and rhymes with 憂き寝 (also uki-ne), "anxious/melancholic/lonesome in bed;" this word-play frequently appears in ancient Japanese literature.

實をとりて胸にあつれば
新なり流離の憂
mi wo torite mune ni atsu reba
arata nari ryuuri no urei

As I take the coconut
and place it onto my chest
the sorrow of this drifting life
fills me anew

海の日の沈むを見れば
激り落つ異郷の涙
umi no hi no shizumu wo mi reba
tagiri otsu ikyou no namida

As I behold the sun set on the ocean
tears stream down my face
for I wander this foreign land

思ひやる八重の汐々
いづれの日にか國に歸らむ
omoiyaru yae no shiojio
izure no hi ni ka kuni ni kaeran

My thoughts drift
beyond the broad ocean
I shall one day return home

八重の汐々 (yae no shiojio) literally means eight-fold waves, referring to the vastness of the ocean.