Haru no yo no yume no naka ni mo omoiki ya kimi naki yado o yukite mimu to wa - Gosen Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

春の夜の夢のなかにも思ひきや
君なき宿を行きて見むとは

Roma-ji: Haru no yo no yume no naka ni mo omoiki ya kimi naki yado o yukite mimu to wa
English Translation: Even in a dream
of a brief night in the spring
could I have foreseen
that I would come to look upon
your house with you not there
Meaning: Not even in a dream on a fleeting spring night could I have imagined that I would come to see your house with you no longer in it.
Commentary: Book Twenty Congratulatory Poems 1387

Headnote: "While in mourning for his elder brother, on going to Ichijō."
The poet asks whether he could have imagined, even in a spring night's dream, that he would come to see the house without its master. Visiting the Ichijō house in mourning for his brother, he sings of the grief of facing what he had never dreamed of, even in a brief spring night.
According to the headnote, it was composed when he went to Ichijō while in mourning for his elder brother. The next poem is the reply, and the two form an exchange.
The poet, "the Grand Minister," is Fujiwara no Tadahira. The fourth son of Fujiwara no Mototsune, he served as Regent, Chancellor and Grand Minister, and was posthumously named Teishinkō. The Ogura Hyakunin Isshu includes his poem "Ogurayama mine no momijiba kokoro araba."

The first line, "Haru no yo no," means "of a spring night," a figure for what is short and fleeting.
The second line, "yume no naka ni mo," means "even in a dream," taken up by "yume utsutsu to mo" in the last line of the next poem.
The third line, "omoiki ya," means "could I have thought? Never," with "ya" rhetorical. The poem pauses here.
The fourth line, "kimi naki yado o," means "your house without you," the house of his late brother.
The last line, "yukite mimu to wa," means "that I would come and see it," inverted with "omoiki ya" in the third line.
Author: Fujiwara no Tadahira
Source: Gosen Wakashu
Prev Poem: Mada shiranu hito mo arikeru azumaji ni ware mo yukite zo sumu bekarikeru
Next Poem: Yado mireba nete mo samete mo koishikute yume utsutsu to mo wakarezarikeri