A Journal from Japan: A Daily Record of Life as Seen by a Scientist

The Project Gutenberg eBook, A Journal from Japan, by Marie Carmichael Stopes
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A JOURNAL FROM JAPAN


A DAILY RECORD OF LIFE AS SEEN BY A SCIENTIST
BY MARIE C. STOPES D.Sc., Ph.D., F.L.S.
LONDON BLACKIE & SON, Limited, 50 OLD BAILEY, E.C. GLASGOW AND BOMBAY 1910


Land that mused while the world was striving! Land that dreamed while the nations fought! Truth with thy dreamers had forgathered, Peace, in thine isles enclosed, had taught Her secret laws of Beauty to thy sons. Then men spent hours beneath the cherry trees, Or watched the pointed Iris pierce the ground. They cultivated Wisdom on their knees And regulated life in ways profound. Then thy fair daughters ministered to men, Subduing and subdued their graceful form. Dreamland of Beauty, girt by glowing seas! Thou didst appear unfitted for the storm That broke upon thee from the lowering West. Yet thou hast risen and conquered. Thou dost stand, armed as a modern People In the front rank—and yet I say, alas! Who could have wished, in waking thou shouldst spurn The wondrous rightness of thy sheltered past? To be as others are thou seem’st to yearn, And for mere useful ugliness dost cast For ever from thee beauties unsurpassed. True, thou hast beaten them on their own ground, The Goths and Vandals whom as foes were found, Yet I would rather see thee still apart Than soiling thy traditions in the mart. Wouldst thou not weep if thy sweet cherry tree Dropped its light blooms to bear the hard rice grains? O cherry flower of lands! I weep to see Thy falling blooms. The whole World’s loss, thy “gains.”