Okite yuku namida no kakaru kusamakura tsuyu shigeshi to ya hito no ayamen - Senzai Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

おきてゆく涙のかかる草枕
露しげしとや人のあやめん

Roma-ji: Okite yuku namida no kakaru kusamakura tsuyu shigeshi to ya hito no ayamen
English Translation: Rising to set out,
my tears fall upon
this grass pillow:
will they find it strange, that dew
should lie so thick upon it?
Meaning: My tears fall on this grass pillow as I rise to set out; will people find it strange that dew should lie so thick upon it?
Commentary: Book Thirteen Love Poems III 823

Headnote: "Composed on the topic 'Love on a journey'"
Composed on the topic "love on a journey." The grass pillow wet with tears as I rise and set out, he says, will people find it strange that the dew lies so thick? The tears that wet his pillow on the journey were shed in longing for the beloved, and the poem worries whether people will take them for heavy dew of the fields or see them for tears and wonder, conveying a hidden love on the road.
The author is anonymous, and the name has not come down.
Taking up the sleeves wet with dwarf-bamboo dew of the preceding poem, this one overlays dew lying on the grass pillow with tears, so that poems singing of love's tears through dew continue. Poem 791 of this book also sings that tears on a traveling robe cannot be blamed on dew, answering this poem in linking the tears of love on a journey with dew.

First line, "okite yuku": "oki" pivots between "rising" from the bed and dew "lying," an associated word of "tsuyu" in the fourth line.
Second line, "namida no kakaru": "on which the tears of parting fall."
Third line, "kusamakura": sleep on a journey, giving the "journey" of the topic.
Fourth line, "tsuyu shigeshi to ya": "shigeshi" means abundant, and "ya" is an interrogative particle that binds with "n" in the last line, "that the dew is so thick." Like "shigekereba" in the third line of the preceding poem, it sings of heavy dew.
Fifth line, "hito no ayamen": "ayamu" is to find strange, to question, and "n" the attributive of the conjectural "mu," concluding "ya."
Author: Unknown Poet
Source: Senzai Wakashu
Prev Poem: Wakekitsuru ozasa ga tsuyu no shigekereba au michi ni sae nururu sode kana
Next Poem: Namida o mo shinoburu koro no waga sode ni ayanaku tsuki no yadorinuru kana