Wa ga seko ga tsukai o matsu to kasa mo kizu idetsutsu zo mishi ame no furaku ni

我が背子が使を待つと笠も着ず
出でつつぞ見し雨の降らくに

Roma-ji: Wa ga seko ga tsukai o matsu to kasa mo kizu idetsutsu zo mishi ame no furaku ni
English Translation: Waiting for the one
my beloved would send me,
without any hat
I went out again to look,
though the rain was coming down
Meaning: Waiting for a messenger from my husband, I went out again and again to look, without even a hat, though the rain was falling.
Commentary: Book Eleven Love Poems Ancient and Modern I 2681

Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "Expressing Feelings through Things"
Waiting for a messenger bearing word from her husband, the speaker, a woman, went out again and again to look, without even a hat, though rain was falling. Her heedlessness of the rain shows how eagerly she longs for his message.
After the poem on mist, a run of poems on rain begins here. With the next poem, 2682, it shares rain in the final line and a kakarimusubi in which "zo" is answered by "shi," the attributive form of the past auxiliary "ki"; the two also form a pair as poems of a woman waiting for her lover on a rainy day.
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, "wa ga seko ga": "my husband's." "Seko" is a term of endearment used by a woman for her husband or lover.
Second line, "tsukai o matsu to": "waiting for a messenger." "Tsukai" is the go-between who carries a lover's message.
Third line, "kasa mo kizu": "without even a hat." The particle "mo" shows an eagerness that forgets even rain gear.
Fourth line, "idetsutsu zo mishi": "I went out again and again to look." "Tsutsu" expresses repetition, and "zo" is answered by "shi," the attributive form of the past auxiliary "ki," in a kakarimusubi.
Fifth line, "ame no furaku ni": "though the rain was falling." "Furaku" is the nominalized form of "furu," placed after the fourth line in inverted order.
Source: Manyoshu
Prev Poem: Kawachidori sumu sawa no ue ni tatsu kiri no ichishirokemu na ai ii somete ba
Next Poem: Karakoromo kimi ni uchikise mimaku hori koi zo kurashishi ame no furu hi o