Wagimoko ga ika ni omoe ka nubatama no hitoyo mo ochizu ime ni shi miyuru

我妹子がいかに思へかぬばたまの
一夜もおちず夢にし見ゆる

Roma-ji: Wagimoko ga ika ni omoe ka nubatama no hitoyo mo ochizu ime ni shi miyuru
English Translation: My dear wife,
what can she be thinking,
that through the jet-black nights
not missing even one
she appears in my dreams
Meaning: What can my dear wife be thinking, that not a single night passes without her appearing in my dreams?
Commentary: Book Fifteen Poems of the Envoys to Silla 3647

Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "In the sea off Saba we suddenly met a contrary wind and drifted on swelling waves. After a night had passed we happily found a fair wind and reached Wakuma Bay in Shimotsumike District, Buzen Province. Recalling the hardship with pain and sorrow, we composed eight poems"
He sings that his wife must be thinking of him deeply, for she appears in his dreams every night without fail. Drawing on the belief that when someone thinks of you they appear in your dreams, he senses in the dream-figure of his wife the depth of her feeling. The phrase "nubatama no hitoyo mo ochizu ime ni shi miyuru" is nearly the same as the third line onward of 3738, composed by the exiled Nakatomi no Yakamori in the latter half of this book, so that an expression of the feelings of spouses far apart is shared across the two halves of the book.
According to the headnote, this is one of eight poems composed by the travelers recalling their ordeal: in the sea off Saba in Suō Province they suddenly met a contrary wind and drifted, and after a night found a fair wind and reached Wakuma Bay in Shimotsumike District, Buzen Province. The sea of Saba is thought to be off present-day Hōfu in Yamaguchi Prefecture, and Wakuma Bay near Nakatsu in Ōita Prefecture. Of the eight, only the first has its author named; the author of this poem is not named.

First line, "wagimoko ga": my dear wife.
Second line, "ika ni omoe ka": "omoe" is the realis and "ka" an interrogative binding particle: because of what thoughts. It is resolved by the attributive "miyuru."
Third line, "nubatama no": the black seed of the blackberry lily; from its blackness a pillow word for "night."
Fourth line, "hitoyo mo ochizu": "otsu" means to be left out: not missing a single night.
Fifth line, "ime ni shi miyuru": "ime" is dream and "shi" an emphatic particle; answering "ka" in the second line, it ends in the attributive form.
Source: Manyoshu
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