Such, too, is man: soon pales the ruddy cheek,
The raven locks soon fade;

And the fresh smile of morn 'twere vain to seek
Amid the evening shade.

And I that gaze upon the mortal scene,
My tears flow down for ever,

Where all is viewless as the wind unseen,
And fleeting as the river.

(YAKAMOCHI.)

The Cuckoo.

(MAY, A.D. 750.)

Near to the valley stands my humble cot,
The village nestles 'neath the cooling shade
Of lofty timber; but the silent glade
Not yet re-echoes with the cuckoo's note.

The morning hour e'er finds me, sweetest bird!
Before my gate; and, when the day doth pale,
I cast a wistful glance adown the vale;-
But e'en one note, alas! not yet is heard.

(HIRONAHA.)

Lines

SENT BY A MOTHER TO HER DAUGHTER. (JULY, A.D. 750.)

[The mother was Sakanouhe, and lived at the court of Nara. Her daughter, who was married to the poet Yakamochi, had

H

accompanied her husband to his governorship of the distant province of Koshi."]

Thou wast my child, and to my heart more dear
Than to the sov'reign monarch of the deep

All the rich jewels that in casket rare
Beneath the billows he is said to keep.

But it was just that thy bold spouse should bear
Thee in his train t'ward Koshi's deserts wild.
Thou bad'st adieu; and since that hour, sweet child,
In ceaseless visions of remembrance clear
There seems to float the face for which I yearn,
The brows oblique as ocean's crested wave.
But I am old, and scarce love's pow'r to save
May stretch my life to welcome thy return.

(SAKANOUHE.)

* The native commentators do not notice the discrepancy between the statement of this poem that Yakamochi had taken his wife with him to his far northern governorship, and those of his own verses written from the north to the wife whom he had left at Nara, and lamenting his solitary state (see the songs on pp. 64 and 66, besides many others in the “Mañyefushifu"). The simplest explanation probably is that the poet had two wives (though Sakanouhe's daughter was doubtless the legitimate one), and that, in writing of his solitariness to his Nara wife, he made use of a poetical license as common among the ancient Japanese as the relations between the sexes were loose,

Short Stanzas

FROM THE

"KOKINSHIFU;"

OR,

“ COLLECTION OF odes, ancient and

MODERN."

SHORT STANZAS.

I.

(Spring, i. 4.*)

Spring, spring, has come, while yet the landscape bears

Its fleecy burden of unmelted snow!

Now may the zephyr gently 'gin to blow,

To melt the nightingale's sweet frozen tears.

(Anon.)

2.

(Spring, i. 6.)

Amid the branches of the silv'ry bowers
The nightingale doth sing: perchance he knows
That spring hath come, and takes the later snows
For the white petals of the plum's sweet flowers.t
(SOSEI.)

As noted in the Introduction, the “Kokiñshifu” stanzas are, in the original, arranged in several categories,-Spring, Summer, Love, &c., many of which are themselves subdivided. Thus Spring, i. 4, signifies the fourth ode in the first subdivision of Spring, and so on of the rest.

The plum-tree, cherry-tree, &o., are in Japan cultivated not for their fruit, but for their blossoms. Together with the wisteria, the lotus, the iris, the lespedeza, and a few others, these take the place which is occupied in the West by the rose, the lily, the violet, &c. Though flowers are perpetually referred to and immensely admired, there has never been any symbolism connected with them.