classic waka stream

驚かぬわが心こそ憂かりけれ
はかなき世をば夢と見ながら
Roma-ji

Odorokanu waga kokoro koso ukarikere hakanaki yo o ba yume to minagara

English Translation
This heart of mine
that will not wake from its sleep,
how wretched it is,
though it sees this fleeting world
for what it is, a dream
Meaning
How wretched is this heart of mine that will not wake, though it sees this fleeting world for the dream it is.
Commentary
Book Nineteen Buddhist Poems 1235

Headnote: "Composed on the Vimalakīrti Sutra's ten similes: this body is like a dream"
Like the preceding poem, this one was composed on the simile that this body is like a dream. How wretched is my heart that does not wake, though it sees this fleeting world as a dream, he says. He laments plainly that though he knows the world is as fleeting as a dream, his heart will not wake from that dream and strive on the Buddhist path.
The author, "Tōren Hōshi," was a monk of the late Heian period and one of the poets who gathered at Shun'e's Karin'en.
It shares its theme with the preceding poem, 1234; where that poem treats the line between dream and reality as a matter of reason, this one laments a heart that will not wake though it knows the dream, the two forming a pair of reason and feeling.

First line, "odorokanu": "odoroku" means to wake, to come to one's senses, so this is not waking from the dream of delusion.
Second line, "waga kokoro koso": "koso," an emphatic binding particle, closes with the perfective form "kere" in the third line.
Third line, "ukarikere": "how wretched, how pitiful," and the poem pauses here.
Fourth line, "hakanaki yo o ba": "this fleeting world."
Fifth line, "yume to minagara": "nagara" is adversative, "though I see it as a dream." By inversion it gives the reason for the lament of the third line, taking up the "dream" of the preceding poem, 1234.
Author
Tōren
Source
Senzai Wakashu
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