Ikani shite yoru no kokoro o nagusamemu hiru wa nagame ni sate mo kurashitsu - Senzai Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

いかにして夜の心を慰めむ
昼はながめにさても暮らしつ

Roma-ji: Ikani shite yoru no kokoro o nagusamemu hiru wa nagame ni sate mo kurashitsu
English Translation: How am I to soothe
the heart that comes with the night?
The daylight hours, lost
in brooding gazes, somehow
I managed to live them through
Meaning: How am I to comfort my heart through the night? The day I somehow passed, lost in brooding as I gazed out, but the night is another matter.
Commentary: Book Fourteen Love Poems IV 840

Headnote: "Topic unknown"
How shall I comfort my heart at night, she asks; by day I somehow got through, gazing out lost in thought. By day she can still pass the hours sunk in brooding as she looks out, but at night, when longing swells, her heart has nowhere to turn, and the poem conveys this anguish of love through the contrast of day and night. It is a frank expression of the basic feeling of love poetry, that a troubled heart deepens with the night.
The author, "Izumi Shikibu," was the daughter of Ōe no Masamune, Governor of Echizen. She became the wife of Tachibana no Michisada, Governor of Izumi, and bore him Koshikibu no Naishi, and later had love affairs with Prince Tametaka and Prince Atsumichi. She served Jōtōmon'in Shōshi and is known for her passionate love poems. A poem of hers is included in the Ogura Hyakunin Isshu.
This poem opens the fourth book of love. Poem 903 at the end of the book says, "if, even in death, the heart could be divided," wishing to leave the heart with the beloved after death, so that where the opening poem laments that the "heart" cannot be comforted at night, the beginning and end of the book answer each other through the word "heart."

First line, "ikani shite": "how," expressing a question. It answers "nagusamemu" in the third line, conveying a lament with no remedy.
Second line, "yoru no kokoro o": "the heart at night," when longing grows. It pairs with "hiru," "day," in the fourth line. It answers "kokoro o wakuru" in the second line of 903 at the end of the book through the word "kokoro."
Third line, "nagusamemu": "mu" is an auxiliary of will or conjecture, "how shall I comfort it." The poem pauses here.
Fourth line, "hiru wa nagame ni": "nagame" is gazing absently while lost in thought. "Night" in the second line and "day" here form a contrast, and "wa" singles out the day to set it apart from the night.
Fifth line, "sate mo kurashitsu": "sate mo" means "even so, somehow." "Tsu" is an auxiliary of completion; by declaring that the day has somehow been passed, the poem throws into relief how hard the night is to get through.
Author: Izumi Shikibu
Source: Senzai Wakashu
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