Imo ga sode wakareshi hi yori shirotae no koromo katashiki koitsutsu zo nuru

妹が袖別れし日より白栲の
衣片敷き恋ひつつぞ寝る

Roma-ji: Imo ga sode wakareshi hi yori shirotae no koromo katashiki koitsutsu zo nuru
English Translation: Since the day I left
the sleeves of my own dear girl,
my robe of white cloth
I spread with one sleeve only,
and sleep on, longing for her
Meaning: Since the day I parted from my beloved's sleeves, I have spread only one sleeve of my white robe, and I sleep alone, longing for her all the while.
Commentary: Book Eleven Love Poems Ancient and Modern I 2608

Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "Expressing One's Feelings Directly"
Since the day he parted from his beloved's sleeves, the speaker has spread only one sleeve of his own robe and gone on sleeping alone with his longing: this is a love poem. It sets the days of shared sleep against the solitary nights of now and plainly states the loneliness that has lasted since their parting.
Following the preceding poem, 2607, which tells of being parted from shared sleeves, this poem too begins from a parting of sleeves, and poems about sleeves and robes continue. The third line, "shirotae no," is also used as the opening line of the next poem, 2609.
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, "imo ga sode": "my beloved's sleeves." These are the sleeves exchanged in shared sleep, standing for the beloved herself.
Second line, "wakareshi hi yori": "since the day we parted." "Shi" is the attributive form of the past auxiliary "ki," and "yori" marks a starting point, suggesting how long it has been since then.
Third line, "shirotae no": a pillow word attached to robes and sleeves, here to "koromo" in the fourth line. The purity of the white cloth sharpens the loneliness of sleeping alone.
Fourth line, "koromo katashiki": spreading only one sleeve of one's own robe to sleep on. Lovers spread their sleeves together, so a single spread sleeve expresses sleeping alone.
Fifth line, "koitsutsu zo nuru": "I sleep, longing all the while." "Tsutsu" marks repeated, continuing action, and the emphatic particle "zo" is answered by the attributive form "nuru" in a kakari-musubi construction.
Source: Manyoshu
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