classic waka stream

片敷きの袖の氷も結ぼほれ
とけて寝ぬ夜の夢ぞ短き
Roma-ji

Katashiki no sode no kōri mo musubohore tokete nenu yo no yume zo mijikaki

English Translation
The ice upon the sleeve
spread out to sleep alone
is bound up tight;
on nights I cannot sleep at ease
how short the dreams become
Meaning
The ice on the single sleeve I spread to sleep alone is bound up hard, and on nights when I cannot ease into sleep, how short my dreams are!
Commentary
Book Six Winter Poems 635

Headnote: "When I presented a hundred-poem sequence."
This is the seventh poem of the ice sequence. The ice on the single sleeve spread for lonely sleep is bound up hard, and on nights when the heart will not ease into sleep, dreams are short. According to the headnote, it was composed when a hundred-poem sequence was presented.
The author is not named in the original and continues from the preceding poem as Fujiwara no Yoshitsune. A son of the Regent Kujō Kanezane, he rose to Regent and Chancellor and wrote the Japanese preface to the Shin Kokin Wakashū.
The scene is a winter night, and the place is the bedchamber of one who sleeps alone.
The direct occasion is the presentation of a hundred-poem sequence. The headnote does not record for which gathering the hundred poems were composed.

The first line, "katashiki no," refers to spreading only one sleeve of one's robe to sleep alone. Following 609 and 611 in this book, the sleeve of lonely sleep is sung again.
The second line, "sode no kōri mo," means "the ice of frozen tears on the sleeve, too."
The third line, "musubohore," means "bound up tight," overlaying ice frozen hard with a heart that is gloomy and will not clear.
In the fourth line, "tokete nenu yo no," "toke" carries both ice "thawing" and the heart "easing." "Musubohore" and "toke" are associated words.
The last line, "yume zo mijikaki," is a kakari-musubi construction in which "zo" is answered by the attributive form of the adjective "mijikashi." Just as the ice on the sleeve does not thaw, the heart does not ease, and on nights without restful sleep the dreams are short. The phrasing "uchitokete nenu yo" of 609 in this book is used again here, carried over from frost to ice. From the current among the rocks in the preceding poem, the poem returns to ice on the sleeve in the bedchamber, and the dreams that cannot be formed in 633 answer the short dreams of this poem.
Author
Fujiwara no Yoshitsune
Source
Shin Kokin Wakashu
Other