Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1906-11-03
JAPANESE SHORT POEMS.
The Composition Of Them the Amuses
ment Of the Cultivated.
a the South Atlantic Quarterly.

ment OF the Cultivated.
From the South Atlantic Quarterly.
There are no long poems in Japanese A
long poem is unthinkable to them. They
have what sometimes pass for long ex-
cursions In verse. but these are really noth-
ing more than short poems strung together.
lacking al unity save that of subject. The
favorite forms are the hokku, consisting ct
three lines. the first having five. the second
having seven, and the third having FIVE
syllables-seventeen in all: the tanka, con-
sistlng of five lines of FIVE. seven. FIVE.
seven, seven syllables-thirty-one In all; and
the dodoitsu, consisting OF seven, seven,
seven, hve sylables-or twenty-six in all.
The tanka is the classical form, affected
py the standard poets of the country, while
me other forms are used by every japanese
that writes at all and by many that cam
not; The hokku is the great favorite.
Ia rnese little Poems are so much a part Of
Japanese life that every cultivated person
writes them. The emperor, II is believed,
conposes four of them every day, and all
MI; Mno 20 TO view" the flowers. the blossom
Ing OF the cherry trees. the reddening
,nap.es IN oyeno or other parks, write some
81 oonceit In hokku and hang II upon
t the bhn nis or lotos stalks. or on
therefore, be justly called the song of Japan.
as We say a certain ecstasy in a few nntaS
fs- ,ne song or the thrush No other poetic
form mas ever received such exalted honor
Inc hokku Is composed impromptu upon
every occasion, the writer putting into yersa
t %! thought appropriate TO the moment. thA
lncioent, or the associations suggested
much as the Greeks wrote their enipra ~
before the epigram became. in the handf
OF Martial and his SUCCESSORS a little sa trio
sting. One Of the most famous OF bokkn
was composed by the poetess Chiyo wben
she found one day that a morning glory
mad flung its tendrils around her welt
Asagoo nj
Tsurube torarete
Moral midzu
tIhe morning glory has seized my well
bucket. Gfft-waterD Sir Edwin Arnold.
the dinuse used forty English words 20
translate these five japanese. or eight for
one:
The morning glory
Her leaves and bells has bound
My bucket handle round.
could not break the bands
vi those soft hands
The bucket and the well to her left:
Give me some water. for | come bereit
familiar story about Basho illustrates
now these hokku were improvised. The
great pard's groom was also a poet. and AZ
the two were riding through a country lane
Iney saw dragon fly. The groom imme.
Aka-tombo-
Hane tottara
To-garashi
"a dragon hy-tear of his wings and vo,f
have red pepper pod) But Basho re.
buked the cruelty of the thought. and cor.
rected the poem:
Hane tsuketara.
Aka-tombo.
add wings to the pod of red pepper and
you have dragon fiy)!
A poet sees dragon fly. tombo. fut-
writes:
Tombo no
Mo va iri-hi
Dance, o Dragon Fly, in your world OF
the setting sunD This hokku is remark
able for its marvellous brevity, having but
NJ nf a1l~
syllables-four syllables being accounted
for in an equal number of long ones
Another poet says the tombo has dyed
its body with the setting SUM-" An old
statesman on his deathbed sees a dead Leaf
whirled by his window and it suggests his
own faring forth on the wings of eternity;
and he writes: "A leaf whirls down-a leaf
whirls down in the wind" Nothing more;
but the simple repetition is voluble as
Medicines heart on ST. Agnes Eve.
These little poems may justly be COM
pared. think, to simple bird songs, or bet
ter perhaps. to the note of that finest of
all singers, the little cricket that the Jap
anese call 'kusahibashi." or grass lark and
make gilded captive in a cage an inch
quisite melody. Keats had The true daa
when he wrote, Beauty is truth truth
beauty; that is all We know on earth-and
all We need to know" though he did not
always follow his own counsel. But TO
these rare singers the unadorned beauty
of truth-the cool, chaste pagan loneliness
hokku in which the poet is contrasting the
deathless youth of nature and the brief
life of man, a topic that would serve Cor
an Italian canto or English lyric He
writes:
Hito nj koso
Toshi ha yori
Iiaru kusa,
CT is only man that becomes aged o
grass of springD
Basho had the thought centuries before
Keats, when he said truth is the marrow
of STYLE and his famous motto is perhaps
the best thing that has ever been said "
literary form and is Itself a model of form
and a miracle of brevity: 'Fu-eki ryu-ko;'
unchanging truth in fleeing form" That
is, the matter must be of enduring interest
but the form, or style, must be that which
best suits the age in which it is written,
The result is permanent literature. 1t is
chiefly due to the influence of Basho that
the poetry of Japan has attained this
wonderful conciseness, purity of form and
chaste beauty.
THANKSGIVING In Paris