"At dawn, how cold the waiting moon doth shine
On remnants of snow beneath the pine!"
By Meiji Tenno.
Translated by Mrs. Douglas Adams.
That the poetry of Japan is not without its humour is shown by the following comic song, which deals with a subject of universal interest:
"In the shadow of the mountain
What is it that shines so?
Moon is it? or star? or is it the firefly insect?
Neither is it moon,
Nor yet star....
It is the old woman's eye—it is the eye
Of my mother-in-law that shines!"
Modern poetry is read by every one, and composed by every one. Poems are written on tablets and hung or suspended in the houses; they are everywhere, printed on all useful and household articles. I quote a poem called "The Beyond," which was published in a recent issue of the Japan Magazine. It shows not only a change of form, but of theme as well.
"Thou standest at the brink. Behind thy back
Stretch the fair, flower-decked meadows, full of light,
And pleasant change of wooded hill and dale
With tangled scrub of thorn and bramble bush,
Which men call life. Lo! now thy travelled foot
Stands by the margin of the silent pool;
And, as thou standest, thou fearest, lest some hand
Come from behind, and push thee suddenly
Into its cold, dark depths.
"Thou needst not fear;
The hidden depths have their own fragrance too,
And he that loves the grasses of the field,
With fragrant lilies decks the still pool's face,
With weeds the dark recesses of the deep;
March boldly on, nor fear the sudden plunge,
Nor ask where ends life's meadow-land.
E'en the dark pool hath its own fragrant flowers."
The two young poets, Horoshi Yosano and his wife Akiko, are known as the Brownings of Japan. Yosano was editing a small magazine of verse not long ago when the poetess Akiko sent him one of her maiden efforts for publication. A meeting followed, and in spite of poverty—for poets are poor in Japan as elsewhere—they fell in love and were presently married. They went to France, and were made much of by the young poets of Paris. Yosano is something of a radical, impatient of poetic conventions and thoroughly in harmony with the new spirit of Japan. The power of Akiko's work is suggested in a poem of hers called "The Priest."
"Soft is thy skin:
Thou hast never touched blood,
O teacher of ways
Higher than mortal:
How lonely thou art!"