Okimo sezu nemo sede yoru o akashite wa haru no mono tote nagame kurashitsu - Kokin Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

起きもせず寝もせで夜を明かしては
春のものとてながめ暮らしつ

Roma-ji: Okimo sezu nemo sede yoru o akashite wa haru no mono tote nagame kurashitsu
English Translation: Neither risen up
nor sleeping, I passed the night
until it was dawn,
and then, as spring is wont to bring,
I spent the day in long rain's gaze
Meaning: Neither truly awake nor truly asleep, I let the night slip into dawn; and then, gazing at the long rains that belong to spring, I passed the whole day lost in brooding thought.
Commentary: Book Thirteen Love Poems III 616

Headnote: "Composed and sent after he had secretly begun to speak with someone from the first day of the Third Month, on a day when a soft rain was falling."
Having met his beloved, the poet tells her that he could not sleep at night and spent the day watching the spring rains, sunk in thought. According to the headnote, he had begun a secret affair around the first of the Third Month and sent this poem on a day of drizzling rain. The paired phrases "neither risen nor sleeping" capture the unsettled heart after a tryst, and the pun linking nagame, "long rain," with "brooding gaze" has made it one of Narihira's best-known poems.
The author, recorded as Ariwara no Narihira Ason, was the fifth son of Prince Abo; his mother was Princess Ito, a daughter of Emperor Kanmu. He served as Head Chamberlain and Provisional Middle Captain of the Right Inner Palace Guards, and is counted among the Six Poetic Immortals and the Thirty-Six Poetic Immortals.
The poem also appears in section 2 of The Tales of Ise, as the poem of a man who visited a woman in the western part of the capital. Placed at the head of this book, which opens with the brooding that surrounds a meeting, it echoes the closing poem by Ise, which ends with "slept without even a pillow," the two framing the book around sleeping and not sleeping.

The first line, "okimo sezu," describes a state that cannot be called waking. The particle mo and the negative zu express a heart caught in between.
The second line, "nemo sede yoru o," pairs with the first and shows a night spent unable to sleep. The particle de carries a negative sense into what follows.
The third line, "akashite wa," means "having spent the night until morning," and moves the scene from night to day.
The fourth line, "haru no mono tote," means "as a thing belonging to spring," and leads into the spring rains.
The final line, "nagame kurashitsu," uses nagame as a pivot word for "long rain" and "brooding gaze," gathering up a lover lost in thought both night and day. The perfective tsu shows that a whole day has slipped by.
Author: Ariwara no Narihira
Source: Kokin Wakashu
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