Puslapio vaizdai
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BY LAKE BIWA

(By the dream-like waters of Lake Biwa's tide,

In the opal haze, one eve of spring, were

we:

My loved one whispered, sitting at my side. "The color of forget-me-not," said she.)

It was a beautiful day late in April. The soft caress of spring was in the air when one day my knight and I found ourselves by Lake Biwa, the lake of the lute.

The water was softly lapping against the stones beneath the tiny balcony, as we sat in the small four-and-a-half mat room of the rural hostelry of Zé-zé.

Our hearts were full of content and happiness, things distressful and faraway had lost their power. We felt free of the world, the ukiyo, the unstable world of change and pain and care.

A soft, opalescent haze hung over the blue mirror-like lake, and the boats, with their sails, in the hazy distance lay as in a mirage of fairy-land. The rhythm of oars in the offing borne softly, so softly over the waters, sounded like heavenly music, marking the happy time.

Ah, how beautiful the hour was as our hearts unfolded and blossomed with love in the sunshine of life!

As the knight was about to start on a journey, our hours together were numbered. Touched to wistfulness because of the parting to come, sweet, oh, sweet were these fleeting, tranquil moments on the shore of the lake of the lute!

Hiding the emotion I felt, I said as I looked at the knight:

"To-day the lake is the color of forget-me-not."

My hand crept to his in blissful trust, and his pressed mine in a silent response.

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My loved one whispered, sitting at my side. "The color of forget-me-not," said she.

THE shadows are lengthening; the sun sets in crimson glory behind dark gray, lavender, and purple clouds. Silver mists spread over the river and veil the emerald hills beyond. A cool, caressing zephyr rises from the water and stirs the feathery bamboos of the grove.

Life wakes again in the heat-becalmed foliage, and the giant magnolia shading the veranda drops now and again agebrown petals from the ivory chalices of its magnificent blossoms.

The peewit's cry is heard as they wing their way along the shore and over the stream, and the creaking oar of a boat moving up-stream brings to mind the Feast of the Farther Shore, the Higan, when in the spring and autumn priests pray for the souls of the departed.

Heat-weary and languidly longing for the cool at the end of the day, we stroll beside the river-bank.

As we pass through the grass, the dew

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on our bare sandaled feet soothes and revives us. With the twilight we find peace and rest and sanctuary from the fulsome, noisy glare of a midsummer day. The sonorous cry of the sad cicada, the "day-darkener," rings in the evening like a temple bell, and the threnody of the flowing river drifts like music over the quiet landscape.

As we saunter along the river, up from the village comes noise of an unwonted commotion.

Hark! the conch-shells drone in the distance "ho-ho-ho," and the drum throbs "don-don," and the gong is beaten "kan-kan." In unison the village orchestra keeps rhythm: "ho-ho, don-don, kan-kan."

This is the O Yare, the summer festival of the village. The O Yare is the great "driving-away" of insects through bonfires on the river-bank.

Insects in myriads, attracted by the light, fly toward the fires and meet death in the flames. Thus the ricefields and gardens are freed of these pests. The O Yare is the great "sending-off."

The rustics gather in the street, waiting for the torches to appear. The shouts of the youths are heard in the distance. The procession soon comes into view.

The first torch (taimatsu) is a stack of straw built with an umbrella-like roof. Against this great sheaf purple lanterns are draped as bunches of grapes, and yellow lanterns are arranged to look like luscious loquatsz. Giant apples of bamboo frame and painted paper add to this bright cluster of harvest fruit.

This artistic creation is placed on a cart and drawn along with great ostentation of staggering by young men who lunge forward or backward to the accompaniment of vociferous shouting.

The second taimatsu is decorated with an enormous red lily. Four torches, like harvest symbols, one for each part of the village, are thus borne along, escorted by the villagers, men, women, and children.

The conch-shells are blown "ho-ho-ho," the gong clashes "kan-kan-kan," the drum throbs "don-don-don," and the torch-cars pass forward to the rivershore.

When the four taimatsu have reached the bank, with great ceremony and clamor they are lighted by the young men, and the bonfires flare into the night. Bundles of wood and straw are thrown into the flames; the villagers beat the bonfires with long sticks, each striving to make his fire burn the brightest. flames rise high in the sky and cast long, fiery reflections upon the river.

The

How happy are the married couple first staying together in the paternal home! The Festival of the O Yare seems to them the welcome celebration of coming to their Ise home.

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MORNING-GLORIES

WOULD you know the purest ecstasy in life? Would you know the thrill of a revelation beyond the sweetest dreams, beyond all that mortal imagination may conjure up in happy vision?

Then come with me before the break of day to my woodland shrine beside a running rill. Here behold the morningglory unfold her dewy freshness to the dawn, while as high priestess at the altar raised to the love of nature she offers heavenward the adoration of simple souls, who in the moonlight have counted with the fervor of prayer and the anticipation of hope the buds that would open at the first ray of the rising sun.

Around us the birds, unseen choristers of the woods, burst forth in happy alleluias, warbling with liquid cadence among the trees.

Oh, morning-glories, morning-glories! Born with the dew and the first breath of dawn, these virgins, luminous as the moonlight, evanescent as the rainbow, and pure and cool as the source of a mountain spring, hold their first and last communion at sunrise, when soon, too soon, they wilt and die.

To this early service with the devotees of the morning come the honey-bee and the jewel-mailed dragon-fly and the peacock-sheened butterfly with black, velvety wings, all seeking the sweet transports of life.

As the delicate chalices of the morningglory are lifted to greet the sunlight, what marvels of color do they reveal! No queen in all her glory was ever ravishingly arrayed like one of these.

Beneath the softest bloom of velvet, the gleaming luster of silk, or the filmy iridescence of pearl, what crystallizations of the prism are displayed, what gleams of tropic fires, what rose-bursts of dawn!

Soul-rapt, I gaze upon moonstonemisted mauves as delicate as the pale amethyst from the Koshu Mountains, and pinks as soft as the faintly blushing cherries that tinge the hills of spring, upon white as immaculate as falling flakes of snow.

And who shall describe the blues that the morning-glory reveals? There is blue as thrillingly brilliant as the scintillating blue in the plumage of the

humming-bird, as delicate as that of the forget-me-not and robin's-egg blue, and there is heaven's deep azure which the universe gathers in its depths, embracing and blessing all.

This is the coronation of the blessed morn. Behold, diadems of dew tremulous with the first stirrings of the leaves, and brighter than the gems in any monarch's crown, hang on every tree! Now a tense stillness of expectation fills the air, while the incense of the earth, the fragrance of flowers, is wafted on the wings of the life-giving breezes of the dawn.

Then come with me to this coronation of the blessed morn, and participate in the rapture of this innocent revel. Leave the heavy-lidded eyed to their prison of slothful sleep and come forth.

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Come, oh, come! Delay not, for the hours of the morning-glory's life are short. A little longer than the natal veil of dew does the flower last. Then the approach of that ardent lover, the sun, scorches the flower, and even before noon does the morning-glory die.

With the happy unknown peasant poet of to-day, I find in the flowering of the morning-glory the realization of the ideal of all I have ever hoped or dreamed of bliss or perfection.

Dear, indeed, to me the morning-glory;
Day by day there opens in its blossoms
All my dreams!

O, morning-glory, the poets and philosophers see in your short life a symbol of the impermanence of human existence. They lament your ephemeral beauty, which, after a brief triumph of splendor, perishes under the merciless sun of day.

Let me rather glory in the perfection you attain in the shortest of days, a sunlit hour of the dawn! Let me, too, strive to make perfect the little which is mine, and then, like you, O morning-glory, shall I be an uplifting impetus, a living joy to all I meet!

The maiden poetess, Chiyo of kagat, spiritual soul, one morning went to draw water from her well, when she found that during the night a morningglory vine, with its tendrils and tender, green stalk, had encircled the rope of her bucket.

Those beautiful fetters she refused to break, and bereft of her crystal draft, she set out to beg water from a neighboring well, composing the ever since celebrated hokku on the way:

(My bucket being taken This morn by morning-glory, I come to beg for water.)

Round my heart has the morningglory wound itself, and those tender, fragile bands, I too, will never break; for the morning-glory has given my soul a new joy, my life a new zest, and myself a new virtue the virtue of greeting the rising sun.

Oh, come with me to this feast of beauty, and with the dragon-fly and the bee and the butterfly learn the simple delight of watching the morning-glory unfold her dewy freshness at break of day!

PLUM-BLOSSOMS

PLUM-BLOSSOMS! Plum-blossoms! Fair heralds of the spring! My heart leaps with joy when your dainty, starlike flowers of pearl and snow begin to illumine the bare branches of the old, old trees, gnarled and bent like a dragon with age. Odorous of the genial days of spring are the chill winds of February and March, when your sweet flowers bloom, braving with samurai spirit the later frosts and snow of the year.

Thus have you become a symbol of womanly beauty and virtue, with fortitude proving sweet patience and courage and endurance during the storms of adversity.

In the beginning of a friendship, on a pilgrimage to admire the plum-blossoms, "the eldest flowers of Mother Earth," the knight first led me forth from the city.

Oh, the surprising charm of nature's ethereal beauty that awaits the pilgrim at the Akebonoya, "The Tea-house of the Dawn!"

In the hillside garden there the plumblossoms form a canopy of flowerwreathed branches, some faintly flushed with soft pink, others ivory and pearly white, all softly radiant in the sunlight.

On each side the gently rising pathway, the nanten, or heavenly bamboo, beneath a crown of beautiful leaves, suspends luxuriant bunches of crimson berries that shed a rich warm glow under the fairy-like tapestry of bloom above. In this flower pavilion we lingered, inhaling the scented air, admiring the delicate beauty of the flowers and the sturdier brightness of the contrasting berries.

I felt as if I had entered the magical gates of dreamland. The quickening joy of expectancy thrilled my being. A shimmer of revelation flashed through me. I felt that something more perfect, something more wonderful, was coming.

The voice of the knight recalled me from my reverie. He spoke of poems composed in honor of the plum-blos

soms.

"What do you think of this, written by Saisho Atsuko, a famous poetess of the nineteenth century:

'Dark the night,

And with no star to guide me, yet the gloom
Is full of hope, for, wafted on the wind,
The plum-tree's fragrance comes to cheer my
heart'?"

"That is full of comfort and inspiration, like an allegory of friendship," I answered; "but will you yourself not compose one to the blossoms?"

The knight was silent a moment and then said:

"Listen! I have indited this little tanka, and hope that you will answer me also in verse."

Year by year the sweetness and the hue Of flowers must always be the same, Why in this year, above all other bloom,

Do I admire these springtime plums?

My heart beat faster as I hastened along the path.

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Under a panoply of plum-blossoms it was the wooing of the knight that first thrilled my soul to the delight and rhythm of life.

It was under the plum-blossoms of spring that I woke to a realizing anticipation of all the future held in store for me!

Oh, ecstasy of wonder when in the spring the plum-blossoms drew me forth from the prosaic world into the land of promise, opening ever fan-like into the beautiful kingdom of romance!

Oh, tender grace of the plum-blossoms transforming the wilderness of life with the diamond lights of hope and the harmony of love.

Blessed, oh, blessed be the dear plumblossoms of spring!

THE KINGFISHER AND THE WATER-LILIES LET us love our children serenely, devotedly, even passionately. Surely in their innocence and angelic simplicity they play on the threshold of heaven.

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