Tanabata no kokoro no uchi ya ika naran machikoshi kyō no yūgure no sora - Senzai Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

七夕の心のうちやいかならむ
待ち来し今日の夕暮の空

Roma-ji: Tanabata no kokoro no uchi ya ika naran machikoshi kyō no yūgure no sora
English Translation: What must she be feeling
in the depths of her heart, the Weaver
on this Tanabata,
gazing at the evening sky
of the day she's waited for?
Meaning: What must the Weaver Maid be feeling in her heart as she gazes at the evening sky of this day she has waited for all year?
Commentary: Book Four Autumn Poems I 235

Headnote: "Composed on the feeling of Tanabata"
Composed on the feeling of "Tanabata," the Star Festival. Before the evening sky of the Tanabata day she has awaited for a whole year, the poet imagines what the Weaver Maid, about to meet the Herdsman, must feel in her heart. The hope of a meeting close at hand and impatience with a sky not yet dark are entrusted to the scene of the evening sky.
The author, "the Regent and Former Minister of the Right," is Kujō Kanezane, son of Chancellor Fujiwara no Tadamichi. After serving as Minister of the Right he became Regent, holding that office when the Senzai Wakashū was compiled, and he left the diary Gyokuyō.
This poem and the six that follow, through 241, form a sequence on Tanabata, arranged to follow the flow of time from dusk through night to dawn. This poem's last line, "yūgure no sora," the evening sky, pairs with "akatsuki no sora," the dawn sky, at the end of 241, which closes the sequence.

First line, "tanabata no": "Tanabata" here means the Weaver Maid star.
Second line, "kokoro no uchi ya": the interrogative "ya" links with "ramu" in the third line.
Third line, "ika naran": "how must it be?", with "ramu" closing the construction with "ya." The poem pauses here and is inverted with the lines that follow.
Fourth line, "machikoshi kyō no": "shi" is the attributive past: "of this day she has waited for all year."
Fifth line, "yūgure no sora": ends on a noun, the Tanabata evening sky before the meeting. It pairs with "akatsuki no sora" in 241, which closes the sequence, and 278 of this book ends with the same "yūgure no sora."
Author: Kujō Kanezane
Source: Senzai Wakashu
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