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Japanese Prints 
 
By John Gould Fletcher 
 
 Japanese Prints 
 Goblins and Pagodas 
 Irradiations: Sand and Spray 
 
'Of what is she dreaming? 
 Of long nights Ht with orange lanterns, 
 Of wine-cups and compliments and kisses of the two- 
 sword men." X 
 
'UL'.£, 
 
Japanese Prints 
 
 By 
 
 John Gould Fletcher 
 
 With Illustrations By 
 
 Dorothy Pulis Lathrop 
 
 Boston 
 
 The Four Seas Company 
 1918 
 
Copyright, 1918, by 
 The Four Seas Company 
 
 The Four Seas Press 
 Boston, Mass., U.S.A. 
 
 JUL 27 19i8 
 
 C1.A502582 
 
To My Wife 
 
 Granted this dew-drop world be but a dew-drop world. 
 This granted, yet — 
 
Table of Contents 
 
 Preface i i 
 
 Part I. 
 
 Lovers Embracing 21 
 
 A Picnic Under the Cherry Trees 22 
 
 Court Lady Standing Under Cherry Tree 23 
 
 Court Lady Standing Under a Plum Tree 24 
 
 A Beautiful Woman 25 
 
 A Reading 26 
 
 An Actor as a Dancing Girl 27 
 
 Josan No Miya 28 
 
 An Oiran and Her Kamuso 29 
 
 Two Ways Of Love 30 
 
 Kurenai-ye or "Red Picture" 31 
 
 A Woman Standing by a Gate with an Umbrella z~ 
 
 Scene from a Drama ZZ 
 
 A Woman in Winter Costume 34 
 
 A Pedlar 35 
 
 Kiyonobu and Kiyomasu Contrasted 36 
 
 An Actor Z7 
 
 Part IL 
 
 Memory and Forgetting 41 
 
 Pillar-Print, Masonobu 42 
 
 The Young Daimyo 43 
 
 Masonubu — Early 44 
 
 The Beautiful Geisha 45 
 
 A Young Girl 46 
 
 The Heavenly Poetesses 47 
 
 The Old Love and The New 48 
 
 Fugitive Thoughts 49 
 
 Disappointment 50 
 
 The Traitor 51 
 
 The Fop 52 
 
 Changing Love 53 
 
 In Exile 54 
 
The True Conqueror 55 
 
 Spring Love 56 
 
 The Endless Lament 57 
 
 Toyonobu. Exile's Return 58 
 
 Wind and Chrysanthemum 59 
 
 The Endless Pilgrimage 60 
 
 Part IIL 
 
 The Clouds 63 
 
 Two Ladies Contrasted 64 
 
 A Night Festival 65 
 
 Distant Coasts 66 
 
 On the Banks of the Sumida 67 
 
 Yoshiwara Festival 68 
 
 Sharaku Dreams 69 
 
 A Life 70 
 
 Dead Thoughts 71 
 
 A Comparison 72 
 
 Mutability 73 
 
 Despair 74 
 
 The Lonely Grave 75 
 
 Part IV. 
 
 Evening Sky 79 
 
 City Lights 80 
 
 Fugitive Beauty 81 
 
 Silver Jars 82 
 
 Evening Rain 83 
 
 Toy-Boxes 84 
 
 Moods 85 
 
 Grass 86 
 
 A Landscape 87 
 
 Terror 88 
 
 Mid-Summer Dusk 89 
 
 Evening Bell from a Distant Temple 90 
 
 A Thought 91 
 
 The Stars 92 
 
 Japan 93 
 
 Leaves 94 
 
List of Illustrations 
 
 "Of what is she dreaming? 
 Of long nights lit with orange lanterns, 
 Of wine-cups and compliments and kisses 
 
 of the two-sword men." Frontispiece 
 
 Headpiece — Part I 19 
 
 Tailpiece — Part 1 3i 
 
 Headpiece — Part II 39 
 
 "Out of the rings and the bubbles, 
 The curls and the swirls of the water, 
 Out of the crystalline shower of drops shattered in play, 
 Her body and her thoughts arose." 46 
 
 *'The cranes have come back to the temple, 
 The winds are flapping the flags about. 
 Through a flute of reeds 
 I will blow a song." 58 
 
 Tailpiece — Part II 60 
 
 Headpiece — Part III 61 
 
 "Then in her heart they grew, 
 The snows of changeless winter, 
 Stirred by the bitter winds of unsatisfied desire." 70 
 
 Tailpiece — Part III 75 
 
 Headpiece — Part IV .77 
 
 Headpiece — Part IV 94 
 
 "The green and violet peacocks 
 Through the golden dusk 
 Stately, nostalgically. 
 Parade." Endleaf 
 
Preface 
 
 4 T the earliest period concerning which we have 
 h\ any accurate information, about the sixth 
 
 "^ century A. D., Japanese poetry already con- 
 tained the germ of its later development. 
 The poems of this early date were composed of a first 
 line of five syllables, followed by a second of seven, 
 followed by a third of five, and so on, always ending 
 with a line of seven syllables followed by another of 
 equal number. Thus the whole poem, of whatever 
 length (a poem of as many as forty-nine lines was 
 scarce, even at that day) always was composed of an 
 odd number of lines, alternating in length of syllables 
 from five to seven, until the close, which was an extra 
 seven syllable line. Other rules there were none. 
 Ehyme, quantity, accent, stress were disregarded. 
 Two vowels together must never be sounded as a 
 diphthong, and a long vowel counts for two syllables, 
 likewise a final " n ", and the consonant ' ' m " in some 
 cases. 
 
 This method of writing poetry may seem to the 
 reader to sulfer from serious disadvantages. In reali- 
 ty this was not the case. Contrast it for a moment 
 with the undignified w^elter of undigested and ex parte 
 
 [11] 
 
Japanese Prints 
 
 theories which academic prosodists have tried for 
 three hundred years to foist upon English verse, and 
 it will be seen that the simple Japanese rule has the 
 merit of dignity. The only part of it that we Occi- 
 dentals could not accept perhaps, with advantage to 
 ourselves, is the peculiarly Oriental insistence on an 
 odd number of syllables for every line and an odd 
 number of lines to every poem. To the Western 
 mind, odd numbers sound incomplete. But to the 
 Chinese (and Japanese art is mainly a highly-special- 
 ized expression of Chinese thought), the odd numbers 
 are masculine and hence heavenly; the even numbers 
 feminine and hence earthy. This idea in itself, the 
 antiquity of which no man can tell, deserves no less 
 than a treatise be written on it. But the place for 
 that treatise is not here. 
 
 To return to our earliest Japanese form. Sooner 
 or later this crystallized into what is called a tanka 
 or short ode. This was always five lines in length, 
 constructed syllabically 5, 7, 5, 7, 7, or thirty-one 
 syllables in all. Innumerable numbers of these tanka 
 were written. Gradually, during the feudal period, 
 improvising verses became a pastime in court circles. 
 Some one would utter the first three lines of a tanka 
 and some one else would cap the composition by add- 
 ing the last two. This division persisted. The first 
 hemistich which was composed of 17 syllables grew 
 to be called the hokku, the second or finishing hemi- 
 
 [12] 
 
Preface 
 
 stich of 14 syllables was called ageku. Thus was 
 born the form which is more peculiarly Japanese 
 than any other, and which only they have been able 
 to carry to perfection. 
 
 Composing hokku might, hovrever, have remained 
 a mere game of elaborate literary conceits and double 
 meanings, but for the genius of one man. This was 
 the great Basho (1644-1694) who may be called cer- 
 tainly the greatest epigrammatist of any time. Dur- 
 ing a life of extreme and voluntary self-denial and 
 wandering, Basho contrived to obtain over a thousand 
 disciples, and to found a school of hokku writing 
 which has persisted down to the present day. He 
 reformed the hokku, by introducing into everything 
 he wrote a deep spiritual significance underlying the 
 words. He even went so far as to disregard upon 
 occasion the syllabic rule, and to add extraneous syl- 
 lables, if thereby he might perfect his statement. He 
 set his face sternly against impromptus, poemes d' oc- 
 casion, and the like. The number of his works were 
 not large, and even these he perpetually sharpened 
 and polished. His influence persisted for long after 
 his death. A disciple and priest of Zen Buddhism 
 himself, his work is permeated with the feeling of that 
 doctrine. 
 
 Zen Buddhism, as Basho practised it, may be 
 called religion under the forms of nature. Every- 
 thing on earth, from the clouds in the sky to the 
 
 [13] 
 
Japanese Prints 
 
 pebble by the roadside, has some spiritual or ethical 
 significance for us. Blake's words describe the aim 
 of the Zen Buddhist as well as any one 's : 
 "To see a World in a grain of sand, 
 And a Heaven in a wild flower; 
 
 Hold infinity in the palm of your hand, 
 And Eternity in an hour. ' ' 
 Basho would have subscribed to this as the sole rule 
 of poetry and imagination. The only difference be- 
 tween the Western and the Eastern mystic is that 
 where one sees the world in the grain of sand and 
 tells you all about it, the other sees and lets his silence 
 imply that he knows its meaning. Or to cjuote Lao- 
 tzu: "Those who speak do not know, those who 
 know do not speak." It must always be understood 
 that there is an implied continuation to every Jap- 
 anese hokku. The concluding hemistich, whereby 
 the hokku becomes the tanka, is existent in the writer 's 
 mind, but never uttered. 
 
 Let us take an example. The most famous hokku 
 that Basho wrote, might be literally translated thus: 
 "An old pond 
 
 And the sound of a frog leaping 
 
 Into the water." 
 This means nothing to the Western mind. But to the 
 Japanese it means all the beauty of such a life of 
 retirement and contemplation as Bash5 practised. If 
 we permit our minds to supply the detail Basho de- 
 
 [14] 
 
Preface 
 
 liberately omitted, we see the mouldering temple en- 
 closure, the sage himself in meditation, the ancient 
 piece of water, and the sound of a frog's leap — pass- 
 ing vanity — slipping into the silence of eternity. The 
 poem has three meanings. First it is a statement of 
 fact. Second, it is an emotion deduced from that. 
 Third, it is a sort of spiritual allegory. And all this 
 Bashd has given us in his seventeen syllables. 
 
 All of Basho's poems have these three meanings. 
 Again and again wq get a sublime suggestion out of 
 some quite commonplace natural fact. For instance : 
 ''On the mountain-road 
 
 There is no flower more beautiful 
 
 Than the wild violet." 
 The wild violet, scentless, growing hidden and neg- 
 lected among the rocks of the mountain-road, sug- 
 gested to Basho the life of the Buddhist hermit, and 
 thus this poem becomes an exhortation to ''shun the 
 world, if you would be sublime." 
 
 I need not give further examples. The reader 
 can now see for himself what the main object of the 
 hokku poetry is, and what it achieved. Its object 
 was some universalized emotion derived from a nat- 
 ural fact. Its achievement was the expression of that 
 emotion in the fewest possible terms. It is therefore 
 necessary, if poetry in the English tongue is ever to 
 attain again to the vitality and strength of its be- 
 ginnings, that we sit once more at the feet of the 
 
 [15] 
 
Japanese Prints 
 
 Orient and learn from it how little words can express, 
 how sparingly they should be used, and how much is 
 contained in the meanest natural object. Shakespeare, 
 who could close a scene of brooding terror with the 
 w^ords: ''But see, the morn in russet mantle clad. 
 Walks o'er the dew of yon high eastern hill" was 
 nearer to the oriental spirit than we are. We have 
 lost Shakespeare's instinct for nature and for fresh 
 individual vision, and we are unwilling to acquire it 
 through self -discipline. If we do not want art to dis- 
 appear under the froth of shallow egotism, we must 
 learn the lesson Basho can teach us. 
 
 That is not to say, that, by taking the letter for 
 the spirit, we should in any Avay strive to imitate the 
 hokku form. Good hokkus cannot be written in Eng- 
 lish. The thing we have to follow is not a form, but 
 a spirit. Let us universalize our emotions as much 
 as possible, let us become impersonal as Shakespeare 
 or Basho was. Let us not gush about our fine feelings. 
 Let us admit that the highest and noblest feelings 
 are things that cannot be put into words. Therefore 
 let us conceal them behind the words we have chosen. 
 Our definition of poetry would then become that of 
 Edwin Arlington Robinson, that poetry is a language 
 which tells through a reaction upon our emotional 
 natures something which cannot be put into words. 
 Unless we set ourselves seriously to the task of under- 
 standing that language is only a means and never an 
 
 [16] 
 
Preface 
 
 end, poetic art will be dead in fifty years, from a sur- 
 feit of superficial cleverness and devitali^d realism. 
 In the poems that follow I have taken as my sub- 
 jects certain designs of the so-called Uki-oye (or Pass- 
 ing World) school. These prints, made and produced 
 for purely popular consumption by artists who, what- 
 ever their genius, were despised by the literati of 
 their time, share at least one characteristic with Jap- 
 anese poetry, which is, that they exalt the most trivial 
 and commonplace subjects into the universal signifi- 
 cance of works of art. And therefore I have chosen 
 them to illustrate my doctrine, which is this : that one 
 must learn to do well small things before doing things 
 great ; that the universe is just as much in the shape 
 of a hand as it is in armies, politics, astronomy, or 
 the exhortations of gospel-mongers; that style and 
 technique rest on the thing conveyed and not the 
 means of conveyance; and that though sentiment is 
 a good thing, understanding is a better. As for the 
 poems themselves they are in some cases not Japanese 
 at all, but all illustrate something of the charm I 
 have found in Japanese poetry and art. And if they 
 induce others to seek that charm for themselves, my 
 purpose v/ill have been attained. 
 
 John Gould Fletcher. 
 
 [17] 
 
Part I 
 
Lovers Embracing 
 
 Force and yielding meet together : 
 An attack is half repulsed. 
 Shafts of broken sunlight dissolving 
 Convolutions of torpid cloud. 
 
 [21] 
 
A Picnic Under the Cherry Trees 
 
 The boat drifts to rest 
 
 Under the outward spraying branches. 
 
 There is faint sound of quavering strings, 
 
 The reedy murmurs of a flute, 
 
 The soft sigh of the ^vind through silken garments; 
 
 All these are mingled 
 
 With the breeze that drifts away. 
 
 Filled with thin petals of cherry blossom. 
 
 Like tinkling laughter dancing away in sunlight. 
 
 [22] 
 
Court Lady Standing Under Cherry Tree 
 
 She is an iris, 
 
 Dark purple, pale rose. 
 
 Under the gnarled boughs 
 
 That shatter their stars of bloom. 
 
 She waves delicately 
 
 With the movement of the tree. 
 
 Of what is she dreaming? 
 
 Of long nights lit with orange lanterns, 
 
 Of wine cups and compliments and kisses of the 
 
 two-sword men. 
 And of dawn when weary sleepers 
 Lie outstretched on the mats of the palace. 
 And of the iris stalk that is broken in the fountain. 
 
 [23] 
 
Court Lady Standing Under a Plum Tree 
 
 Autumn winds roll through the dry leaves 
 
 On her garments; 
 
 Autumn birds shiver 
 
 Athwart star-hung skies. 
 
 Under the blossoming plum-tree, 
 
 She expresses the pilgrimage 
 
 Of grey souls passing, 
 
 Athwart love's scarlet maples 
 
 To the ash-stre^vn summit of death. 
 
 [24] 
 
A Beautiful Woman 
 
 Iris-amid-clouds 
 Must be her name. 
 
 Tall and lonely as the mountain-iris, 
 Cold and distant. 
 
 She has never known longing: 
 Many have died for love of her. 
 
 [25] 
 
A Reading 
 
 ''And the prince came to the craggy rock 
 
 But saw only hissing waves 
 
 So he rested all day amid them." 
 
 He listens idly, 
 
 He is content with her voice. 
 
 He dreams it is the mnrmnr 
 Of distant wave-caps breaking 
 Upon the painted screen. 
 
 [26] 
 
An Actor as a Dancing Girl 
 
 The peony dancer 
 
 Swirls orange folds of dusty robes 
 
 Through the summer. 
 
 They are spotted with thunder showers, 
 Falling upon the crimson petals. 
 
 Heavy blooms 
 
 Breaking and spilling fiery cups 
 
 Drowsily. 
 
 [27] 
 
Josan No Miya 
 
 She isi a fierce kitten leaping in sunlight 
 Towards the swaying boughs. 
 
 She is a gust of wind, 
 
 Bending in parallel curves the boughs of the willow- 
 tree. 
 
 [28] 
 
An Oiran and her Kamuso 
 
 Gilded hummingbirds are whizzing 
 Through the palace garden, 
 Deceived by the jade petals 
 Of the Emperor's jewel-trees. 
 
 [29] 
 
Two Ways of Love 
 
 The wind half blows her robes, 
 
 That subside 
 
 Listlessly 
 
 As swaying pines. 
 
 The wind tosses hers 
 
 In circles 
 
 That recoil upon themselves : 
 
 How should I love — as the swaying or tossing wind? 
 
 [30] 
 
Kurenai-ye or "Red Picture'* 
 
 She glances expectantly 
 Through the pine avenue, 
 To the cherry-tree summit 
 Where her lover will appear. 
 
 Faint rose anticipation colours her, 
 
 And sunset; 
 
 She is a cherry-tree that has taken long to bloom. 
 
 [31] 
 
A Woman Standing by a Gate with an 
 Umbrella 
 
 Late summer changes to autumn: 
 Chrysanthemums are scattered 
 Behind the palings. 
 
 Gold and vermilion 
 The afternoon. 
 
 I wait here dreaming of vermilion sunsets : 
 
 In my heart is a half fear of the chill autumn rain. 
 
 [32] 
 
Scene from a Drama 
 
 The daimyo and the courtesan 
 Compliment each other. 
 
 He invites her to walk out through the maples, 
 She half refuses, hiding fear in her heart. 
 
 Far in the shadow 
 
 The daimyo 's attendant waits, 
 
 Nervously fingering his sword. 
 
 [33] 
 
A Woman in Winter Costume 
 
 She is like the great rains 
 
 That fall over the earth in winter-time. 
 
 Wave on wave her heavy robes collapse 
 In green torrents 
 Lashed with slaty foam. 
 
 Downward the sun strikes amid them 
 
 And enkindles a lone flower; 
 
 A violet iris standing jqI in seething pools of grey. 
 
 [34] 
 
A Pedlar 
 
 Gaily he offers 
 Packets of merchandise. 
 
 He is a harlequin of illusions, 
 His nimble features 
 Skip into smiles, like rainbows, 
 Cheating the villagers. 
 
 But in his heart all the while is another knowledge, 
 The sorrow of the bleakness of the long wet winter 
 night. 
 
 [35] 
 
Kiyonobu and Kiyomasu Contrasted 
 
 One life is a long summer; 
 
 Tall hollyhocks stand proud upon its paths; 
 
 Little yellow waves of sunlight, 
 
 Bring scarlet butterflies. 
 
 Another life is a brief autumn, 
 
 Fierce storm-rack scrawled with lightning 
 
 Passed over it 
 
 Leaving the naked bleeding earth. 
 
 Stabbed with the swords of the rain. 
 
 [36] 
 
An Actor 
 
 He plots for he is angry, 
 He sneers for he is bold. 
 
 He clinches his fist 
 
 Like a twisted snake; 
 
 Coiling itself, preparing to raise its head. 
 
 Above the long grasses of the plain. 
 
 [37] 
 
Part II 
 
Memory and Forgetting 
 
 I have forgotten how many times he kissed me, 
 
 But I cannot forget 
 
 A swaying branch— a leaf that fell 
 
 To earth. 
 
 [41] 
 
Pillar-Print, Masonobu 
 
 He stands irresolute 
 
 Cloaking the light of his lantern. 
 
 Tonight he will either find new love or a sword-thrust, 
 But his soul is troubled with ghosts of old regret. 
 
 Like vines with crimson flowers 
 They climb 
 Upwards 
 Into his heart. 
 
 [42] 
 
The Young Daimyo 
 
 When he first came out to meet me, 
 
 He had just been girt with the two swords ; 
 
 And I found he was far more interested in the glitter 
 of their hilts, 
 
 And did not even compare my kiss to a cherry- 
 blossom. 
 
 [43] 
 
Masonubu — Early 
 
 She was a dream of moons, of fluttering handker- 
 chiefs, 
 Of flying leaves, of parasols, 
 A riddle made to break my heart; 
 The lightest impulse 
 
 To her was more dear than the deep-toned temple bell. 
 She fluttered to my sword-hilt an instant, 
 And then flew away; 
 But who will spend all day chasing a butterfly? 
 
 [44] 
 
The Beautiful Geisha 
 
 Swift waves hissing 
 Under the moonlight; 
 Tarnished silver. 
 
 Swaying boats 
 Under the moonlight, 
 Gold lacquered prows. 
 
 Is it a vision 
 
 Under the moonlight? 
 
 No, it is only 
 
 A beautiful geisha swaying down the street. 
 
 [45] 
 
A Young Girl 
 
 Out of the rings and the bubbles, 
 
 The curls and the swirls of the water, 
 
 Out of the crystalline shower of drops shattered in 
 
 play, 
 Her body and her thoughts arose. 
 
 She dreamed of some lover 
 
 To whom she might offer her body 
 
 Fresh and cool as a flower born in the rain. 
 
 [46] 
 
<i3Jb// 3fll to A'li'N'd 9iil hn. . jriT 
 
 n't b'y ' sqmb io tswofla sfiilfsJavT) sHt tri IrrO 
 
 jnB glri^iJOflJ "i3fi hrrn (i [ 
 
*'Out of the rings and the bubbles, 
 The curls and the swirls of the water, 
 Out of the crystalline shower of drops shattered in 
 
 play. 
 Her body and her thoughts arose." 
 
The Heavenly Poetesses 
 
 In their bark of bamboo reeds 
 The heavenly poetesses 
 Float across the sky. 
 
 Poems are falling from them 
 
 Swift as the wind that shakes the lance-like bamboo 
 
 leaves ; 
 The stars close around like bubbles 
 Stirred by the silver oars of poems passing. 
 
 [47] 
 
The Old Love and the New 
 
 Beware, for the dying vine can hold 
 The strongest oak. 
 
 Only by cutting at the root 
 Can love be altered. 
 
 Late in the night 
 
 A rosy glimmer yet defies the darkness. 
 
 But the evening is growing late, 
 
 The blinds are being lowered; 
 
 She who held your heart and charmed you 
 
 Is only a rosy glimmer of flame remembered. 
 
 [48] 
 
. Fugitive Thoughts 
 
 My thoughts are sparrows passing 
 
 Through one great wave that breaks 
 
 In bubbles of gold on a black motionless rocK. 
 
 4f) 
 
Disappointment 
 
 Rain rattles on the pavement, 
 Puddles stand in the bluish stones; 
 Afar in the Yoshiwara 
 Is she who holds my heart. 
 
 Alas, the torn lantern of my hope 
 Trembles and sputters in the rain. 
 
 [50] 
 
The Traitor 
 
 I saw him pass at twilight; 
 He was a dark cloud travelling 
 Over palace roofs 
 With one claw drooping. 
 
 In his face were written ages 
 
 Of patient treachery 
 
 And the knowledge of his hour. 
 
 One dainty thrust, no more 
 Than this, he needs. 
 
 [51] 
 
The Fop 
 
 His heart is like a wind 
 Torn between cloud and butterfly; 
 Whether he will roll passively to one, 
 Or chase endlessly the other. 
 
 [52] 
 
Changing Love 
 
 My love for her at first was like the smoke that drifts 
 Across the marshes 
 From burning woods. 
 
 But, after she had gone, 
 
 It was like the lotus that lifts up 
 
 Its heart shaped buds from the dim waters. 
 
 [53] 
 
In Exile 
 
 My heart is mournful as thunder moving 
 
 Through distant hills 
 
 Late on a long still night of autumn. 
 
 My heart is broken and mournful 
 
 As rain heard beating 
 
 Far off in the distance 
 
 While earth is parched more near. 
 
 On my heart is the black badge of exile ; 
 I droop over it, 
 I accept its shame. 
 
 [54] 
 
The True Conqueror 
 
 He only can bow to men 
 
 Lofty as a god 
 
 To those beneath him, 
 
 Who has taken sins and sorrows 
 
 And whose deathless spirit leaps 
 
 Beneath them like a golden carp in the torrent. 
 
 [55] 
 
spring Love 
 
 Through the weak spring rains 
 Two lovers walk together, 
 Holding together the parasol. 
 
 But the laughing rains of spring 
 
 Will break the weak green shoots of their love. 
 
 His will grow a towering stalk, 
 Hers, a cowering flower under it. 
 
 [56] 
 
The Endless Lament 
 
 Spring rain falls through the cherry blossom, 
 
 In long blue shafts 
 
 On grasses strewn with delicate stars. 
 
 The summer rain sifts through the drooping willow, 
 Shatters the courtyard 
 Leaving grey pools. 
 
 The autumn rain drives through the maples 
 Scarlet threads of sorrow, 
 Towards the snowy earth. 
 
 Would that the rains of all the winters 
 Might wash away my grief! 
 
 [57] 
 
Toyonobu. Exile's Return 
 
 The cranes have come back to the temple, 
 The winds are flapping the flags about, 
 Through a flute of reeds 
 I will blow a song. 
 
 Let my song sigh as the breeze through the crypto- 
 
 merias. 
 And pause like long flags flapping. 
 And dart and flutter aloft, like a \Wnd-bewildered 
 
 crane. 
 
 [58] 
 
!<jfn')} -^fii oJ jiosd ^mo'j avBfi ^anBij ^rlT" 
 ,tiJodB 2§£ft 9rft gniqqBft 3i£ Rbniw ariT 
 
"The cranes have come back to the temple, 
 The winds are flapping the flags about, 
 Through a flute of reeds 
 I will blow a song." 
 
Wind and Chrysanthemum 
 
 Chrysanthemums bending 
 Before the wind. 
 
 Chrysanthemums wavering 
 In the black choked grasses. 
 
 The wind frowns at them, 
 
 He tears off a green and orange stalk of broken 
 chrysanthemum. 
 
 The chrysanthemums spread their flattered heads, 
 And scurry off before the wind. 
 
 [59] 
 
The Endless Pilgrimage 
 
 Storm-birds of autumn 
 With draggled wings: 
 
 Sleet-beaten, wind-tattered, snow-frozen. 
 Stopping in sheer weariness 
 Betw^een the gnarled red pine trees 
 Twisted in doubt and despair; 
 
 Whence do you come, pilgrims. 
 
 Over what snow fields? 
 
 To what southern province 
 
 Hidden behind dim peaks, would you go ? 
 
 "Too long were the telling 
 Wherefore we set out : 
 And where we will find rest 
 Only the Gods may tell." 
 
 [60] 
 
Part III 
 
The Clouds 
 
 Although there was no sound in all the house, 
 
 I could not forbear listening for the cry of those long 
 
 white rippling waves 
 Dragging up their strength to break on the sullen 
 
 beach of the sky. 
 
 [63] 
 
Two Ladies Contrasted 
 
 The harmonies of the robes of this gay lady 
 
 Are like chants within a temple sweeping outwards 
 
 To the morn. 
 
 But I prefer the song of the wind by a stream 
 Where a shy lily half hides itself in the grasses ; 
 To the night of clouds and stars and wine and 
 
 passion, 
 In a palace of tesselated restraint and splendor. 
 
 [64] 
 
A Night Festival 
 
 Sparrows and tame magpies chatter 
 
 In the porticoes 
 
 Lit with many a lantern. 
 
 There is idle song, 
 
 Scandal over full wine cups, 
 
 Sorrow does not matter. 
 
 Only beyond the still grey shoji 
 
 For the breadth of innumerable countries, 
 
 Is the sea with ships asleep 
 
 In the blue-black starless night. 
 
 [65] 
 
Distant Coasts 
 
 A squall has struck the sea afar off. 
 You can feel it quiver 
 Over the paper parasol 
 
 With which she shields her face ; 
 
 In the drawn-together skirts of her robes, 
 As she turns to meet it. 
 
 [66] 
 
On the Banks of the Stimida 
 
 Windy evening of autumn, 
 By the grey-green swirling river, 
 People are resting like still boats 
 Tugging uneasily at their cramped chains. 
 
 Some are moving slowly 
 Like the easy winds: 
 
 Brown-blue, dull-green, the villages in the distance 
 
 Sleep on the banks of the river : 
 
 The waters sullenly clash and murmur. 
 
 The chatter of the passersby, 
 
 Is dulled beneath the grey unquiet sky. 
 
 [67] 
 
Yoshiwara Festival 
 
 The green and violet peacocks 
 
 With golden tails 
 
 Parade. 
 
 Beneath the fluttering jangling streamers 
 They walk 
 Violet and gold. 
 
 The green and violet peacocks 
 
 Through the golden dusk 
 
 Showered upon them from the vine-hung lanterns, 
 
 Stately, nostalgically, 
 
 Parade. 
 
 [68] 
 
Sharaku Dreams 
 
 I will scrawl on the walls of the night 
 Faces. 
 
 Leering, sneering, scowling, threatening faces; 
 
 Weeping, twisting, yelling, howling faces; 
 
 Faces fixed in a contortion between a scream and a 
 
 laugh, 
 Meaningless faces. 
 
 I will cover the walls of night 
 With faces. 
 Till you do not know 
 
 If these faces are but masks, or you the masks for 
 them. 
 
 Faces too grotesque for laughter, 
 Faces too shattered by pain for tears, 
 Faces of such ugliness 
 That the ugliness grows beauty. 
 
 They will haunt you morning, evening, 
 Burning, burning, ever returning. 
 Their own infamy creating. 
 Till you strike at life and hate it. 
 Burn your soul up so in hating. 
 
 I will scrawl on the walls of the night 
 
 Faces, 
 
 Pitiless, 
 
 Flaring, 
 
 Staring. 
 
 [69] 
 
A Life 
 
 Her life was like a swiftly rushing stream 
 Green and scarlet, 
 Falling into darkness. 
 
 The seasons passed for her, 
 Like pale iris wilting, 
 
 Or peonies flying to ribbons before the storm-gusts. 
 The sombre pine-tops waited until the seasons had 
 passed. 
 
 Then in her heart they grew 
 
 The snows of changeless winter 
 
 Stirred by the bitter winds of unsatisfied desire. 
 
 [70] 
 
//'j-tjj[ rjiii j'u^jii "lyfi in ion i 
 
"Then m her heart they grew 
 The snows of changeless winter, 
 Stirred by the bitter winds of unsatisfied desire." 
 
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 •ipif 
 
 m»tAlit,!&i^ . 
 
Dead Thoughts 
 
 My thoughts are an autumn breeze 
 
 Lifting and hurrying 
 
 Dry rubbish about in a corner. 
 
 My thoughts are willow branches 
 Already broken 
 Motionless at twilight. 
 
 171] 
 
A Comparison 
 
 My beloved is like blue smoke that rises 
 
 In long slow planes, 
 
 And wavers 
 
 Over the dark paths of old gardens long neglected. 
 
 [72] 
 
Mutability 
 
 The wind shakes the mists 
 
 Making them quiver 
 
 With faint drum-tones of thunder. 
 
 Out of the crane-haunted mists of autumn, 
 Blue and brown 
 Rolls the moon. 
 
 There was a city living here long ago, 
 
 Of all that city 
 
 There is only one stone left half-buried in the marsh, 
 
 With characters upon it which no one now can read. 
 
 [73] 
 
Despair 
 
 Despair hangs in the broken folds of my garments; 
 
 It clogs my footsteps, 
 
 Like snow in the cherry bloom. 
 
 In my heart is the sorrow 
 
 Of years like red leaves buried in snow. 
 
 [74] 
 
The Lonely Grave 
 
 Pilgrims will ascend the road in early summer, 
 Passing my tombstone 
 Mossy, long forgotten. 
 
 Girls will laugh and scatter cherry petals. 
 Sometimes they ^vill rest in the twisted pine-trees' 
 shade. 
 
 If one presses her warm lips to this tablet 
 The dust of my body will feel a thrill, deep down in 
 the silent earth. 
 
 [75] 
 
Part IV 
 
Evening Sky 
 
 The sky spreads out its poor array 
 
 Of tattered flags, 
 
 Saffron and rose 
 
 Over the weary huddle of housetops 
 
 Smoking their evening pipes in silence. 
 
 [79] 
 
City Lights 
 
 The city gleams with lights this evening 
 
 Like loud and yawning laughter from red lips. 
 
 [80] 
 
Fugitive Beauty 
 
 As the fish that leaps from the river, 
 As the dropping of a November leaf 'at twilight, 
 As the faint flicker of lightning down the southern 
 sky, 
 
 So I saw beauty, far away. 
 
 [81] 
 
Silver Jars 
 
 I dreamed I caught your loveliness 
 In little silver jars: 
 And when you died I opened them, 
 And there was only soot within. 
 
 [82] 
 
Evening Rain 
 
 Rain fell so softly, in the evening, 
 
 I almost thought it was the trees that were talking. 
 
 [83] 
 
Toy-Boxes 
 
 Cities are the toy -boxes 
 
 Time plays with : 
 
 And there are often many doll-houses 
 
 Of which the dolls are lost. 
 
 [84] 
 
Moods 
 
 A poet's moods: 
 
 Fluttering butterflies in the rain. 
 
 [85] 
 
Grass 
 
 Grass moves in the wind, 
 My soul is backwards blown. 
 
 [861 
 
A Landscape 
 
 Land, green-brown; 
 Sea, brown-grey; 
 Island, dull peacock blue; 
 Sky, stone-grey. 
 
 [87] 
 
Terror 
 
 Because of the long pallid petals of white chrysan- 
 themums 
 Waving to and fro, 
 I dare not go. 
 
 [88] 
 
Mid-Summer Dusk 
 
 Swallows twittering at twilight: 
 
 Waves of heat 
 
 Churned to flames by the sun. 
 
 [89] 
 
Evening Bell from a Distant Temple 
 
 A bell in the fog 
 Creeps out echoing faintly 
 The pale broad flashes 
 Of vibrating twilight, 
 Faded gold. 
 
 [90] 
 
A Thought 
 
 A piece of paper ready to toss in the fire, 
 Blackened, scrawled with fragments of an incomplete 
 
 song: 
 My soul. 
 
 [91] 
 
The Stars 
 
 There is a goddess who walks shrouded by day: 
 At night she throws her blue veil over the earth. 
 Men only see her naked glory through the little holes 
 in the veil. 
 
 [92] 
 
Japan 
 
 An old courtyard 
 
 Hidden away 
 
 In the afternoon. 
 
 Grey walks, 
 
 Mossy stones, 
 
 Copper carp swimming lazily, 
 
 And beyond, 
 
 A faint toneless hissing echo of rain 
 
 That tears at my heart. 
 
 [93] 
 
Leaves 
 
 The splaying silhouette of horse-chestnut leaves 
 Against the tali and delicate, patrician-tinged sky 
 Like a princess in blue robes behind a grille of bronze. 
 
 [94] 
 
An edition of 1000 copies only, of which 975 copies have been 
 printed on Olde Style paper, and 25 copies on Japanese Vellum. 
 

 
 
 D.PX