Fuyu no yo no yukige no sora ni ideshikado kage yori hoka ni okuri ya wa seshi - Kinyo Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

冬の夜の雪げの空に出でしかど
影よりほかに送りやはせし

Roma-ji: Fuyu no yo no yukige no sora ni ideshikado kage yori hoka ni okuri ya wa seshi
English Translation: On a winter night
beneath a sky heavy with snow
I went out, and yet
who was there to see me off
but my own shadow alone
Meaning: On a winter night I went out beneath a sky heavy with snow, yet who saw me off but my own shadow?
Commentary: Book Eight Love Poems II 474

He went out beneath a winter night's sky heavy with snow, the poet says, but who saw him off other than his own shadow? The poem conveys the loneliness of a man returning alone under a cold sky, unaccompanied by his beloved.
Where the preceding poem, 473, sings of a soul that wandered off after seeing the beloved away, this poem sings that nothing but a shadow saw him off, so the two stand side by side, one from the side of the one seeing off and one from the side of the one sent off.
The author, Tsunenobu, is Minamoto no Tsunenobu. A son of Minamoto no Michikata, he rose to Major Counselor and was called the Katsura Major Counselor. He was the father of Minamoto no Toshiyori, compiler of this anthology, and one of his poems appears in the Ogura Hyakunin Isshu.

First line, 'fuyu no yo no', means of a winter night.
Second line, 'yukige no sora ni', means beneath a sky about to snow.
Third line, 'ideshikado', means though I went out, with shika, the perfective form of the past ki, followed by the concessive do.
Fourth line, 'kage yori hoka ni', means other than my shadow.
Final line, 'okuri ya wa seshi', means did anyone see me off, no, the particle ya wa forming a rhetorical question closed by shi, the attributive of the past ki.
Author: Minamoto no Tsunenobu
Source: Kinyo Wakashu
Prev Poem: Okurite wa kaere to omoishi tamashii no yukisasuraite kesa wa naki kana
Next Poem: Yukue naku kakikomoru ni zo hikimayu no itou kokoro no hodo wa shiraruru