Hiru to miyuru tsuki ni akuru o shiramashi ya toki tsuku kane no oto sezariseba

昼と見ゆる月に明くるを知らましや
時つく鐘の音せざりせば

Roma-ji: Hiru to miyuru tsuki ni akuru o shiramashi ya toki tsuku kane no oto sezariseba
English Translation: In the moon so bright
it seems like day, would I know
the night had turned to dawn,
if the temple bell that tolls
the hours had not rung out?
Meaning: In moonlight so bright it seems like day, would I ever have known that the night had ended, had the temple bell not tolled the hour?
Commentary: Autumn Poems 408

Headnote: "Bright moon near a temple"
The topic is the bright moon near a temple. The moonlight is so bright that it seems like day, and had the temple bell not rung to tell the hour, the poet would not even have noticed that dawn had come. The moon's brightness is praised by saying it cannot be told from daybreak.
The device of mistaking the moonlit night for day, carried through from 358 to 364, is joined here with the sound of the temple bell, making use of the topic's temple. In 363 the cocks mistook the moonlight for dawn, while here the bell announces the true dawn.

First line, “hiru to miyuru”: a hypermetric line of six syllables, so bright it seems like day.
Second line, “tsuki ni akuru o”: that the night breaks in the moonlight.
Third line, “shiramashi ya”: mashi expresses supposition contrary to fact and ya is rhetorical, would I have known? I would not; the poem breaks after the third line.
Fourth line, “toki tsuku kane no”: toki tsuku means to toll the hour, the temple bell that tells the time.
Fifth line, “oto sezariseba”: seba joins the conjectural form of the past auxiliary ki to ba, had it not sounded, the condition answering the third line, placed afterward by inversion.
Author: Saigyō
Source: Sankashu
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