give pleasure by recalling impressions of nature, by reviving happy incidents of travel or pilgrimage, by evoking the memory of beautiful days. And when this plain fact is fully understood, the persistent attachment of modern Japanese poets—notwithstanding their University training—to the ancient poetical methods, will be found reasonable enough.
I need offer only a very few specimens of the purely pictorial poetry. The following—mere thumb-nail sketches in verse—are of recent date.
Lonesomeness
Furu-dera ya:
Kané mono iwazu;
Sakura chiru.
—“Old temple: bell voiceless; cherry-flowers fall.”
Morning Awakening after a Night’s Rest in a Temple
Yamadera no
Shichō akéyuku:
Taki no oto.
—“In the mountain-temple the paper mosquito-curtain is lighted by the dawn: sound of water-fall.”
