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 Xhemaro,

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 Zhingou in the beginning of the third century of our era, the other by the armics 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 Corca 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 Beath of the Corean Kun
Riguwan.

[A note appended to the original poem tells us that Riguwafl, 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. Naru, the ancient capital, is situated in Yamato, and most of the older temporary capitals were within its limits.

Of these domains that own th' imperial pow'r,
Where glitt'ring palaces unnumber'd rise;

Yet such might please thee not, nor many a bow'r
Where village homesteads greet the pilgrim's eyes:

*

But in this spot, at Sahoyáma's base,

Some secret influence bade thee find thy rest,
Bade seek us out with loving eagerness,

As seeks the weeping infant for the breast.

And here with aliens thou didst choose to dwell,
Year in, year out, in deepest sympathy;
And here thou builtest thee an holy cell;
And so the peaceful years went gliding by.

But ah! what living thing mote yet avoid

Death's dreary summons ?-And thine hour did sound When all the friends on whom thine,heart relied Slept on strange pillows on the mossy ground.t

So, while the morn lit up Kasúga's crest,
O'er Sahogáha's flood thy corse they bore,
To fill a tomb upon yon mountain's breast,
And dwell in darkness drear for evermore,

No words, alas! nor efforts can avail:
Nought can I do, poor solitary child!

A mountain in the province of Yamato. The river Sahogáha, montioned a little further on, runs past its base.

+ This line is an adaptation of the Japanese term Kusa-makura, literally "a pillow of herbs," itself the "pillow-word" for the word journey.

Nought can I do but make my bitter wail,
And pace the room with cries and gestures wild,

Ceaselessly weeping, till my snowy sleeve

Is wet with tears. Who knows? Perchance again Wafted they're borne upon the sighs I heave

On 'Arima's far distant heights to rain.

(SAKANOUHE.)