Matsu hito wa nuru yo mo naki o hototogisu naku ne wa yume no kokochi koso sure - Shika Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

待つ人は寝る夜もなきをほととぎす
鳴く音は夢の心地こそすれ

Roma-ji: Matsu hito wa nuru yo mo naki o hototogisu naku ne wa yume no kokochi koso sure
English Translation: For one who waits
there is no night of sleeping,
and yet the cuckoo's
singing when at last it comes
seems like something in a dream.
Meaning: One who waits has no night of sleep at all, and yet the cuckoo's song, when it comes, feels as if heard in a dream.
Commentary: Book Two Summer Poems 61

Though the poet spends sleepless nights waiting for the cuckoo, the song when finally heard is so fleeting that it seems like a dream. The poem captures both the joy after long yearning and the wonder that it hardly seems real.
Against "those who wake without waiting" in the preceding poem, 60, this one speaks of "one who waits" without sleeping, so the two form a pair.

First line, "one who waits," contrasts with the one who does not wait in the preceding poem.
Second line ends with the concessive particle o, leading to the paradox that one who never sleeps should feel as if dreaming.
Third line, "the cuckoo," leads into its song in the fourth line.
Fourth line hinges on bringing in a "dream" when the poet has not slept at all.
Fifth line forms a koso and sure concord. It is the same phrase that closes poem 63, and the two echo each other within the book.
Source: Shika Wakashu
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