Yomosugara tsuki koso sode ni yadorikere mukashi no aki o omoiizureba

夜もすがら月こそ袖に宿りけれ
昔の秋を思ひ出づれば

Roma-ji: Yomosugara tsuki koso sode ni yadorikere mukashi no aki o omoiizureba
English Translation: All the whole night through,
it was the moon that made its home
there upon my sleeves,
for the autumns of the past
I kept calling back to mind.
Meaning: All night long it was the moon that dwelt upon my sleeves, for I kept recalling the autumns of the past.
Commentary: Autumn Poems 351

Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "When I composed many poems on the moon"
This is the fifteenth poem in the moon series. Because he kept recalling the autumns of the past and shedding tears, all night long the moonlight dwelt in the poet's tear-wet sleeves. Linking the tears of longing for the past with the moon reflected in them, the poem expresses nostalgia through the moon.
It was included in the miscellaneous poems of the Shin Kokin Wakashū, where it follows 349. 349 tells of meeting again an autumn of the past, and this poem of wetting the sleeves in recalling past autumns, so the two poems linking the moon with the past stand side by side in that anthology too.

First line, “yomosugara”: all night long.
Second line, “tsuki koso sode ni”: koso strongly singles out the moon and forms a kakari-musubi with the perfective kere in the third line.
Third line, “yadorikere”: the perfective form answering koso, the moonlight reflected in the tears on the sleeves and staying there; the poem breaks after the third line.
Fourth line, “mukashi no aki o”: the autumns of long ago.
Fifth line, “omoiizureba”: since I recalled them, the perfective form with ba giving afterward by inversion the reason the moon dwelt in the sleeves.
Author: Saigyō
Source: Sankashu
Prev Poem: Nanigoto mo kawari nomi yuku yo no naka ni onaji kage nite sumeru tsuki kana
Next Poem: Nagamureba hoka no kage koso yukashikere kawaraji mono o aki no yo no tsuki