Nature Poems
Charming as are many of the Japaneses love poems, they are not so pleasing or so distinguished as those describing some mood, some scene from Nature, for the Japanese poets are essentially Nature poets. Our National Anthem is very far from being poetry. Here is Japan's, literally rendered into English: "May our Lord's Empire live through a thousand ages, till tiny pebbles grow into giant boulders covered with emerald mosses." It is based on an ancient song mentioned in the Kokinshiu, and, like all ancient songs in praise of kingship, expresses a desire for an Emperor whose very descent from the Sun shall baffle Death, one who shall live and rule past mortal reckoning. There is a symbolic meaning attached to Japanese rocks and stones, closely associated with Buddhism. They represent something more than mere stolidity; they represent prayers. It is the Nature poems of Japan that are supremely beautiful, those describing plum- and cherry-blossom, moonlight on a river, the flight of a heron, the murmuring song of a blue pine, or the white foam of a wave. The best of these poems are touched with pathos. Here is one by Isé:
"Cold as the wind of early Spring,
Chilling the buds that still lie sheathed
In their brown armour with its sting,
And the bare branches withering—
So seems the human heart to me!
Cold as the March wind's bitterness;
I am alone, none comes to see
Or cheer me in these days of stress."
Chōmei
I often think of that twelfth-century Japanese recluse Chōmei. He lived in a little mountain hut far away from City Royal, and there he read and played upon the biwa, went for walks in the vicinity, picking flowers and fruit and branches of maple-leaves, which he set before the Lord Buddha as thank-offerings. Chōmei was a true lover of Nature, for he understood all her many moods. In the spring he gazed upon "the festoons of the wistaria, fine to see as purple clouds." In the west wind he heard the song of birds, and when autumn came he saw the gold colouring of the trees, while the piling and vanishing of snow caused him to think of "the ever waxing and waning volume of the world's sinfulness." He wrote in his charming Hō-jō-ki, the most tender and haunting autobiography in the Japanese language: "All the joy of my existence is concentrated around the pillow which giveth me nightly rest; all the hope of my days I find in the beauties of Nature that ever please my eyes." He loved Nature so well that he would fain have taken all the colour and perfume of her flowers through death into the life beyond. That is what he meant when he wrote:
"Alas! the moonlight
Behind the hill is hidden
In gloom and darkness!
Oh, would her radiance ever
My longing eyes rejoiced!"
Here is a touching hokku, written by Chiyo, after the death of her little son:
"How far, I wonder, did he stray,
Chasing the burnished dragon-fly to-day?"