Omoiyare toyo ni amareru tomoshibi no kakagekanetaru kokorobososa o - Senzai Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

思ひやれとよにあまれる灯火の
かかげかねたる心細さを

Roma-ji: Omoiyare toyo ni amareru tomoshibi no kakagekanetaru kokorobososa o
English Translation: Think of me, I pray,
like a lamp I have kept lit
for more than ten years,
whose wick I cannot raise again,
the forlornness of my heart
Meaning: Imagine how I feel, like a lamp I have tended for more than ten years whose wick I can no longer raise, this heart grown thin and forlorn.
Commentary: Book Seventeen Miscellaneous Poems II 1084

Headnote: "Composed and sent in reply when someone came to console me after I had applied for a study stipend and been refused"
He had applied for a study stipend and been refused, and this poem was composed and sent in reply to someone who came to console him. Imagine the forlornness of a lamp kept lit for more than ten years whose wick I can no longer raise, he says. He has studied for many years by lamplight, yet he has been denied support and his hopes for the future are close to being cut off. Likening that forlornness to a lamp dwindling because its wick cannot be raised, he appeals to the friend who came to console him.
The author, "Ōe no Masanori," was an official of the late Heian period from the Ōe family, whose hereditary calling was letters. His biography is not known in detail.
It shares the first line "omoiyare" with 1148 of this book, both asking another to imagine their forlorn situation.

First line, "omoiyare": imperative, "imagine it." The poem pauses here, in inversion with "kokorobososa o" in the fifth line. It is the same first line as 1148 of this book.
Second line, "toyo ni amareru": understood as "for more than ten years," the long years he has studied by lamplight.
Third line, "tomoshibi no": "no" expresses likeness, "like a lamp," and leads into the fourth line.
Fourth line, "kakagekanetaru": "kakagu" means to raise the wick to make a lamp brighter, overlapped with the sense of being unable to hold up his hopes.
Fifth line, "kokorobososa o": through the image of the thinning flame it closes with "forlornness," naming what the first line asks to be imagined.
Author: Ōe no Masanori
Source: Senzai Wakashu
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