Mushi no ne ni tsuyukekaru beki tamoto ka wa ayashi ya kokoro mono omou beshi

虫の音に露けかるべき袂かは
あやしや心もの思ふべし

Roma-ji: Mushi no ne ni tsuyukekaru beki tamoto ka wa ayashi ya kokoro mono omou beshi
English Translation: Should my sleeves be wet,
with dew drenched at insects' cries?
Surely that's not so.
How strange it is: my heart must
have some sorrow of its own.
Meaning: Should my sleeves be wet with tears at the mere sound of insects? Surely not. How strange; my heart must be brooding over something of its own.
Commentary: Autumn Poems 458

Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "When I composed poems on insects"
This is the fourteenth poem, closing the insect series. The poet's sleeves should not be wet with tears merely at the insects' cries, so it is strange that they are; his heart must be brooding over something. He finds the reason for the tears shed at the insects in a hidden sorrow deep in his own heart.
This series has piled up poems of sleeves wet at insect voices, and it closes with the realization that the tears come not from the insects alone but from sorrows within the poet's own heart.

First line, “mushi no ne ni”: at the insects' cries.
Second line, “tsuyukekaru beki”: tsuyukeshi means wet with dew or prone to tears, that should be wet with tears.
Third line, “tamoto ka wa”: ka wa is rhetorical, are they such sleeves? They are not; the poem breaks after the third line.
Fourth line, “ayashi ya kokoro”: ayashi means strange, and ya is exclamatory.
Fifth line, “mono omou beshi”: beshi is conjectural, my heart must be brooding, the poet guessing at his own heart.
Author: Saigyō
Source: Sankashu
Prev Poem: Aki fukami yowaru wa mushi no koe nomi ka kiku ware totemo tanomi ya wa aru
Next Poem: Hitorine no tomo ni wa narete kirigirisu naku ne o kikeba monoomoi sou