Yukanu ware o komu to ka yoru mo kado sasazu aware wagimoko machitsutsu aru ramu

行かぬ我れを来むとか夜も門閉さず
あはれ我妹子待ちつつあるらむ

Roma-ji: Yukanu ware o komu to ka yoru mo kado sasazu aware wagimoko machitsutsu aru ramu
English Translation: I, who do not go,
"He will come," she thinks, and all night
leaves her gate unbarred;
ah, my dear one, my sweet wife,
she must be waiting for me still
Meaning: Thinking I will come, though I do not go, she leaves her gate unbarred even at night. Ah, my dear wife, she must still be waiting for me.
Commentary: Book Eleven Love Poems Ancient and Modern I 2594

Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "Expressing One's Feelings Directly"
A man pictures his wife, who must believe he will come though he cannot go, leaving her gate open through the night as she waits. Into the exclamation "aware" he puts both the touching devotion of the waiting wife and his own distress at being unable to go.
Whereas poem 2588 of this book was the song of a woman unable to sleep as she waits for a man who does not come, this poem looks from the side of the man who keeps her waiting, so that the one who waits and the one who keeps her waiting form a pair. Like the sleepless-night poems before it, it speaks of the sorrow of love at night.
The author is unknown. The anonymous poems of Book Eleven gather love poems by people whose names have not come down to us.

First line, "yukanu ware o": "I, who do not go." The line has one syllable too many and opens with the speaker who cannot visit.
Second line, "komu to ka yoru mo": "thinking I will come, perhaps, even at night." The particle "ka" marks a question and is answered by the attributive "ramu" in the last line.
Third line, "kado sasazu": "not barring the gate." It depicts concretely the wife who waits with her gate open even at night.
Fourth line, "aware wagimoko": "ah, my dear wife." "Aware" is an exclamation uttered when deeply moved, filled with tenderness toward her and a sense of guilt.
Fifth line, "machitsutsu aru ramu": "she must be waiting still." "Tsutsu" expresses continuation, and "ramu" conjectures about something happening now out of sight; it answers "ka" in the second line.
Source: Manyoshu
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