Hakanashi ya makura sadamenu utatane ni honoka ni mayou yume no kayoiji - Senzai Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

はかなしや枕定めぬうたた寝に
ほのかに迷ふ夢の通ひ路

Roma-ji: Hakanashi ya makura sadamenu utatane ni honoka ni mayou yume no kayoiji
English Translation: How fleeting it is:
in a doze, my pillow never
set in its true place,
dimly wandering, lost,
the pathway of my dreams
Meaning: How fleeting it is: dozing without even setting my pillow right, I find the path of my dreams to him faint and wandering, leading nowhere.
Commentary: Book Eleven Love Poems I 677

Headnote: "A love poem, from when she composed a hundred-poem sequence"
A love poem from a hundred-poem sequence. How fleeting, she says, the path of dreams that wanders faintly in a doze with the pillow unset. Drawing on the belief that setting one's pillow in a certain way lets one dream of the beloved, she paints in a dreamlike way how, in a doze without even that, the dream path to the lover only wanders uncertainly, and so expresses the fragility of love.
The author, "Princess Shokushi," was a daughter of Emperor Go-Shirakawa. As a young woman she served as the Kamo Priestess, and she studied poetry with Fujiwara no Shunzei. She is one of the representative women poets of the Shin Kokinshū age and has a poem in the Ogura Hyakunin Isshu.
The word "kayou" continues here from "kayoiji" in 672 and "kayoisomenuru" in 676 of this book. Poem 700 also sings of seeing the beloved in a dream.

First line, "hakanashi ya": "how fleeting." The poem pauses here, in inverted order.
Second line, "makura sadamenu": "without setting the pillow in place," drawing on the belief that setting the pillow lets one dream of the beloved.
Third line, "utatane ni": "in a doze," lying down and drifting off.
Fourth line, "honoka ni mayou": "wandering faintly," unable to follow the way to the lover in the dream.
Fifth line, "yume no kayoiji": the path by which one goes to the beloved in a dream, ending on a noun. It is the same word as "kayoiji ni" in the third line of 672.
Author: Princess Shokushi
Source: Senzai Wakashu
Prev Poem: Koto no ne ni kayoisomenuru kokoro kana matsu fuku kaze ni aranu mi naredo
Next Poem: Saki ni tatsu namida to naraba hito shirezu koiji ni madou michishirube seyo