intellectual or otherwise non-emotional character. The list made by Tsurayuki of subjects likely to arouse a man to poetic expression contains only emotional ones. In contrast, the most sizeable, if not usually the best parts, of many Chinese poets’ works consist of occasional verse of an almost completely unemotional character in any ordinary sense. In Arthur Waley’s book on Po Chü-i, for example, we find such specimens of Po’s lyricism as:
Since the day that old Ho died the sound of recitation has ceased;
Secretaries have come and secretaries gone, but none of them cared for poetry.
Since Hoy’s day their official journeys have remained unsung;
The lovely precincts of the head office have waked no verse.
For long I grieved to see you kept in the same humble post;
I trembled lest the art of high song should sink to its decline.
To-day when I heard of your appointment as Secretary of the Water Board
I was far more pleased than when myself I became secretary to a Board.[1]
This is an example of the kind of verse which it is impossible to write in Japanese, and no one would dream of attempting it. A Japanese political poem is much more likely to take the form of a wish that the emperor’s reign will last until pebbles become boulders and are covered with moss.
The number of moods in which Japanese poetry can be written is also limited by tradition. There are few poems written in burning indignation, like some of the greatest Chinese poetry, few of religious exaltation, few which touch more than vaguely on metaphysics or ethics. This list might be prolonged almost
- ↑ Waley, The Life and Times of Po Chü-i, pp. 145–6.
