All trippingly a tender girl is going,

In bodice blue and crimson skirt arrayed. None to escort her: would that I were knowing Whether alone she sleeps on virgin bed,

Or if some spouse has won her by his wooing:Tell me her house! I'll ask the pretty maid!

(ANON.)

Evening.

From the loud wave-wash'd shore

Wend I my way,
Hast'ning o'er many a flow'r,
At close of day,-

On past Kusáka's crest,
Onward to thee,

Sweet as the loveliest

Flower of the lea!

(ANON.)

A note to the original says: “The name of the composer of the above song is not given because he was of obscure rank,” a reason which will sound strange to European ears. See, however, the Introduction, p. 17.]

A Maiden's Lament.

Full oft he sware, with accents true and tender, "Though years roll by, my love shall ne'er wax

old!"

And so to him my heart I did surrender,

Clear as a mirror of pure burnish'd gold;

And from that day, unlike the seaweed bending

To ev'ry wave raised by the autumn gust, Firm stood my heart, on him alone depending, As the bold seaman in his ship doth trust.

Is it some cruel god that hath bereft me?

Or hath some mortal stol'n away his heart? No word, no letter since the day he left me, Nor more he cometh, ne'er again to part!

In vain I weep, in helpless, hopeless sorrow,

From earliest morn until the close of day;
In vain, till radiant dawn brings back the morrow,
I sigh the weary, weary nights away.

No need to tell how young I am and slender,—
A little maid that in thy palm could lie:
Still for some message comforting and tender
I pace the room in sad expectancy.

(THE LADY SAKANOUHE.)

Song

COMPOSED ON ASCENDING MOUNT MIKASA.”

Oft in the misty spring

The vapours roll o'er Mount Mikasa's crest,

While, pausing not to rest,

The birds each morn with plaintive note do sing.

In the province of Yamato, close to Nara, the ancient capital.

Like to the mists of spring

My heart is rent; for, like the song of birds,
Still all unanswer'd ring

The tender accents of my passionate words.
I call her ev'ry day

Till daylight fades away;

I call her ev'ry night

Till dawn restores the light;

But my fond pray'rs are all too weak to bring
My darling back to sight.

(AKAHITO.)

Song

ASKING FOR PEARLS TO SEND HOME TO NARA.

They tell me that the fisher-girls

Who steer their course o'er Susu's* brine,

Dive 'neath the waves and bring up pearls:

Oh! that five hundred pearls were mine!

Forlorn upon our marriage-bed,

My wife, my darling sweet and true,

Must lay her solitary head

Since the sad hour I bade adieu.

No more, methinks, when shines the dawn,
She combs her dark dishevell'd hair:

• A place in the province of Noto, the little peninsula that juts out into the Japan Sea on the north-west coast.

E

She counts the months since I am gone,
She counts the days with many a tear.

If but a string of pearls were mine,
I'd please her with them, and I'd say,
"With flags and orange-blossoms twine
Them in a wreath on summer's day.”

(YAKAMOCHL.)

The Flowers of my Garden.

Sent by the sov'reign lord to sway
The farthest lands that own his might,
To Koshi's wilds I came away,
Where stretch the snows all wintry white.

And now five years are past and gone,
And still I sleep on widowed bed,
Nor loose my belt, nor, being thus lone,
May pillow on thine arm my head.

But as a solace for my heart,
Before my dwelling, pinks I sow,
And lilies small, with gard'ner's art
Ta'en from the summer moor below;

• Literally, the tachiḥana (citrus mandarinus), one of the orange tribe. + The most northern province of the empire, on the Aino border.

And never can I leave the house
And see them flow'ring, but I think
On when I'll see my lily spouse,
My spouse as fair as any pink.

Sweet dreams of love! ah! came ye not
The anguish of mine heart to stay,
In this remote and savage spot
I could not live one single day.

(YAKAMOCHL.)