Uguisu no harusame samezame to nakiitaru take no shizuku ya namida naruran

鶯のはるさめさめと鳴きゐたる
竹の雫や涙なるらん

Roma-ji: Uguisu no harusame samezame to nakiitaru take no shizuku ya namida naruran
English Translation: The warbler weeps on
in the spring rain, softly, sadly,
perched there as it sings:
are the drops upon the bamboo
the very tears that it sheds?
Meaning: In the spring rain the warbler sits weeping, crying softly. Could the drops falling from the bamboo be its tears?
Commentary: Spring Poems 26

Headnote: "The warbler in the rain"
The topic is the warbler in the rain. Watching a warbler perched on bamboo singing in the spring rain as though weeping, the poet imagines that the drops falling from the bamboo are its tears.
The heart of the poem is the wordplay of harusame samezame, overlapping spring rain with samezame, weeping softly. By seeing raindrops as tears, the poet lends the warbler's song a touch of sorrow.

First line, “uguisu no”: the warbler, subject of nakiitaru in the third line.
Second line, “harusame samezame to”: overlaps harusame, spring rain, with samezame, the sound of quiet weeping, through the repeated same.
Third line, “nakiitaru”: keeps on singing, in the attributive form modifying the bamboo in the fourth line.
Fourth line, “take no shizuku ya”: the raindrops falling from the bamboo where the warbler perches; ya forms a kakari-musubi with ran in the fifth line.
Fifth line, “namida naruran”: could they be its tears, closing with the conjectural ran on the image of drops as tears.
Author: Saigyō
Source: Sankashu
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