Hototogisu akatsuki kakete naku koe o matanu nezame no hito ya kikuramu - Shika Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

ほととぎす暁かけて鳴く声を
待たぬ寝覚めの人や聞くらむ

Roma-ji: Hototogisu akatsuki kakete naku koe o matanu nezame no hito ya kikuramu
English Translation: The cuckoo's song
that rings out toward the dawn—
do those who wake
without ever having waited
happen to be the ones who hear?
Meaning: The cuckoo's song that sounds on toward daybreak—is it heard, I wonder, by someone who simply woke from sleep without waiting for it at all?
Commentary: Book Two Summer Poems 60

The poem mixes envy and irony: the poet, who waits so eagerly, cannot hear the song, while someone who was not waiting at all may chance to wake and hear it.
The next poem, 61, speaks of "one who waits," pairing with this poem's "one who does not wait." The two are set together in an inverted composition of waiting and not waiting.

First line presents the theme, the cuckoo.
Second line, "toward the dawn," refers to the dark hours before daybreak when the cuckoo sings.
Third line, "the song," is the object of "hear" in the final line.
Fourth line describes someone who woke without waiting, contrasted with the poet who waits on.
Fifth line uses ya for a question and ramu for present conjecture, imagining what happens out of sight.
Source: Shika Wakashu
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