Wonderful in perfume and colour, an angel’s skirt,—left, right, left, left, right.

(Springing from side to side.)

The skirt swishes, the flowers nod, the feathery sleeves trail out and return, the dancing-sleeves.

(She dances “Ha no Mai” the Broken Dance.)

CHORUS.

She has danced many dances,
But not yet are they numbered,
The dances of the East.
And now she, whose beauty is as the young moon,
Shines on us in the sky of midnight,
The fifteenth night,
With the beam of perfect fulfilment,
The splendor of Truth.
The vows[182] are fulfilled, and the land we live in
Rich with the Seven Treasures
By this dance rained down on us,
The gift of Heaven.
But, as the hours pass by,
Sky-cloak of feathers fluttering, fluttering,
Over the pine-woods of Mio,
Past the Floating Islands, through the feet of the clouds she flies
Over the mountain of Ashitaka, the high peak of Fuji,
Very faint her form,
Mingled with the mists of heaven;
Now lost to sight.

CHAPTER VI