Poems on Japa

Table of

I think you would admire it and I am sure that you should know it. A proof of really great art is that it is generally true-it seldom falls into the misapprehensions to which minor art is liable. What do you think of the fact that the finest poetry ever written upon a Japanese subject by any Western poet, has been written by a man who never saw the land? But he is a member of the French Academy, a great and true lover of art, and without a living superior in that most difficult form of poetry, the sonnet. In the time of thirty years he produced only one very small volume of sonnets, but so fine are these that they were lifted to the very highest place in poetical distinction. I may say that there are now only three really great French poets-survivals of the grand romantic school. These are Leconte de Li

Sam

trait fr?lant

bambous tressé

la plage ébloui

ainqueur que s

au flanc, l'éven

rouge et le

sombre, et, sur

e Hizen ou

r vêtu de lames

la soie et les b

ce noir, gigante

sourit dans la

s hatif fait r

s d'or qui tremb

ved, through the finely woven bamboo screen, the conqueror, lov

red girdle and the scarlet tassel appear in sharply cut relief against the d

es of metal, under his bronze, his silk and glimmering l

sk he smiles, and his quickened step makes to glitter in th

But here the poet does not speak of any particular creature; he uses only the generic term, crustacean, the vagueness of which makes the comparison much more effective. I think you can see the whole picture at once. It is a Japanese colour-print,-some ancient interior, lighted by the sun of a great summer day; and a woman looking thr

(Matin d

et de guerre à q

queux en henni

, avec de cliq

e bronze aux

airain, de laqu

à poils de son

lcan sur un c

ge où rit l'au

rs l'Est éclabou

lairer ce mat

blouissant, au-

ses yeux dont pa

seul coup son

n blanc se lève

hinnying, curvets, and makes the rider's bronze cuirass ring against the p

d masque from his beardless face, turns his gaze to the great volcano, lifti

, a blinding disk, above the seas. And to shade his eyes, on both of which not even a single eyelash stirs,

how fine it is. Here also is a Japanese colour print. We see the figure of the horseman on the shore, in the light of dawn; behind him the still dark sky of night; before him the crimson dawn, and Fuji white against the red sky. And in the open fan, with its red sun,

use they are more naturally artists. Indeed one must be something of an artist to write anything in the way of good poetry on a Japanese subject. If you look at the collection "Poems of Places," in the library, you will see how p