Elegy on the Poet's Young Son Furubi.

Sev'n are the treasures mortals most do prize,
But I regard them not:

One only jewel could delight mine eyes,—
The child that I begot.

My darling boy, who with the morning sun
Began his joyous day;

Nor ever left me, but with childlike fun
Would make me help him play;

Who'd take my hand when eve its shadows spread, Saying, "I'm sleepy grown;

"Twixt thee and mother I would lay my head: Oh! leave me not alone!"

Then, with his pretty prattle in mine ears,
I'd lie awake and scan

The good and evil of the coming years,
And see the child a man.

And, as the seaman trusts his bark, I'd trust
That nought could harm the boy:
Alas! I wist not that the whirling gust

Would shipwreck all my joy!

* Viz., gold, silver, emeralds, crystals, rubies, amber (or coral or the diamond), and agate.

Then with despairing, helpless hands I grasp'd
The sacred mirror's sphere; *

And round my shoulder I my garments clasp'd,
And pray'd with many a tear;

""Tis yours, great gods, that dwell in heav'n on high, Great gods of earth! 'tis yours

To heed or heed not, a poor father's cry,
Who worships and implores!"

Alas! vain pray'rs, that more no more avail!
He languish'd day by day,

Till e'en his infant speech began to fail,
And life soon ebb'd away,

Stagg'ring with grief I strike my sobbing breast,
And wildly dance and groan:

Ah! such is life! the child that I caress'd

Far from mine arms hath flown!

*The part played by the mirror in the devotions of the Japanese is carried back by them to a tale in their mythology which relates the disappearance into a cavern of the Sun-goddess Amaterasu, and the manner in which she was enticed forth by being led to believe that her reflection in a mirror that was shown to her was another deity more lovely than herself. The tying up of the wide sleeve (originally by some creeping plant, and later by a riband), which is still commonly practised by the lower classes when engaged in any manual labour, was also naturally adopted by the priests when making their offerings of fruits, &c., and thus passed into a sign of devotion. In this place may also be mentioned the nusa,-offerings of hemp, a plant always looked upon as one of the most precious of the productions of the soil, and presented to the gods as such, or used in the ceremony of purification (see p. 103). In modern times, worthless paper has been substituted for the precious hemp, and the meaning of the ceremony entirely lost sight of, some of the common people even supposed that the gods come down and take up their residence in the strips of paper.

Short Stanza on the Same Occasion.

So young, so young! he cannot know the way:
On Hades' porter* I'll a bribe bestow,

That on his shoulders the dear infant may
Be safely carried to the realms below.

(Attributed to OKURA.)

Elegy on the Poet's Wife.

The gulls that twitter on the rush-grown shore
When fall the shades of night,

That o'er the waves in loving pairs do soar
When shines the morning light,-

'Tis said e'en these poor birds delight To nestle each beneath his darling's wing That, gently fluttering,

Through the dark hours wards off the hoar-frost's might.

Like to the stream that finds

The downward path it never may retrace,
Like to the shapeless winds,

Poor mortals pass away without a trace:
So she I love has left her place,

And, in a corner of my widowed couch,
Wrapp'd in the robe she wove me, I must crouch
Far from her fond embrace.

(NIBI.)

* The reference is a Buddhist one. In a Sutra entitled "Zhifuwau kiyau" details are given of several infernal attendants.

Elegy on Yuki-no-Murazhi Lhemaro,

WHO DIED AT THE ISLAND OF IKI ON HIS WAY TO THE COREA.

[Of this personage nothing further is known. The word Kara in the poem signifies the Corea, although in modern Japanese it is exclusively used to designate China. From the most ancient times down to the year 1876, when the pretension was formally renounced, the Mikados laid claim to the possession of the Corea, -a claim which was substantiated by two conquests, one by the Empress Zhiñgou in the beginning of the third century of our era, the other by the armies of Hideyoshi, the Napoleon of Japan, who practically ruled the country during the latter part of the sixteenth century. It must, however, be admitted that the warrior-empress is at most but a semi-historical character, and that, whatever may be the truth as to the alleged early conquest of the Corea by the Japanese, the latter were undoubtedly led captive by the arts and letters of their more cultivated neighbours.]

Sent by the sov'reign monarch to hold sway
O'er Kara's land, he left his native soil;
But ye, his kinsmen, ne'er the gods did pray,
Or else, perchance, the mats ye did defile.*

"In autumn," spake he, "I will come again,
"Dear mother!" But that autumn is forgot;
And days roll by, and moons do wax and wane,
And still they watch, and still he cometh not.

* Reference is here made to the custom, not yet extinct, of leaving untouched during a certain time the apartment recently occupied by one who has started on a journey. The idea is that to sweep the mats at once would be, as it were, to wipe him out of remembrance. On the second day, at earliest, the room is cleaned, and food for the absent one brought in at the accustomed hours.

*

For he ne'er lighted on that distant shore,
Though far he sailed from fair Yamáto's lea;
But on this cragged rock for evermore
He dwells among the islands of the sea.

(ANON.)

Elegy on the Death of the Corean Nun
Riguwan.

[A note appended to the original poem tells us that Riguwañ, desirous of placing herself under the beneficent sway of the Japanese Emperor, crossed over in the year 714, and for the space of one-and-twenty years sojourned in the house of the Prime Minister Ohotomo. She died in 735 while the Minister and his wife were away at the mineral baths of Arima, a mountain retreat not far from the present port of Kaube. The daughter of the house, Sakanouhe, was alone present at her death and interment, and afterwards sent the following elegy to her mother at Arima. During the sixth, seventh, and eighth centuries there was a very considerable immigration from the Corea into Japan. Artisans and teachers of every description, and even monks and nuns, flocked to what was then a new country.]

Oftimes in far Corea didst thou hear
Of our Cipango as a goodly land;
And so, to parents and to brethren dear
Bidding adieu, thou sailed'st to the strand

* Yamato, though properly the particular designation of one of the central provinces, is often used as a name for the whole of Japan. Nara, the ancient capital, is situated in Yamato, and most of the older temporary capitals were within its limits.