Sadame naku tori ya nakuran aki no yo no tsuki no hikari o omoimagaete

定めなく鳥や鳴くらん秋の夜の
月の光を思ひまがへて

Roma-ji: Sadame naku tori ya nakuran aki no yo no tsuki no hikari o omoimagaete
English Translation: Could the cocks now crow
at no fixed hour of the night,
taking for the dawn
all the light the moon pours forth
on this autumn night so bright?
Meaning: Could the cocks be crowing at no set hour, mistaking the light of the autumn night's moon for the dawn?
Commentary: Autumn Poems 363

Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "When I composed many poems on the moon"
This is the twenty-seventh poem in the moon series. The autumn moon is so bright that the cocks may be mistaking it for the light of dawn and crowing here and there at no fixed hour. The moon's brightness is praised by saying even the cocks take it for daybreak.
It is one of the poems from 358 on that mistake the moonlit night for day, and here it is not people but cocks that take the moonlight for dawn.

First line, “sadame naku”: at no fixed hour, the cocks that should announce dawn crowing at random times.
Second line, “tori ya nakuran”: ya is a question particle and ran present conjecture, can the cocks be crowing; the poem breaks after the second line.
Third line, “aki no yo no”: modifying tsuki in the fourth line.
Fourth line, “tsuki no hikari o”: the light of the moon, the object of omoimagaete.
Fifth line, “omoimagaete”: mistaking it, giving afterward by inversion the reason the cocks crow.
Author: Saigyō
Source: Sankashu
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