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Shiba-fune no risshi mo haru ya asa-kasumi !ear
How spring-like the branches m
Standing up in the firewood-boat
In the morning mist! Kiin

1
 ough doomed for burning, the brushwood, wet with the mist in the
i morning, looks as though it will bud and blossom as always. Kiin,
- is given in Vol. 1, page 242.
A HISTORY OF HAIKU
Volume Two
By R. H. Blyth
HAIKU Vols. I~IV
A HISTORY OF HAIKU Vols. I, II
SENRYU
JAPANESE LIFE AND CHARACTER IN SENRYU
EDO SATIRICAL VERSE ANTHOLOGIES
ORIENTAL HUMOUR
ZEN IN ENGLISH LITERATURE AND ORIENTAL
CLASSICS
ZEN AND ZEN CLASSICS Vols. I, II, VII

A SURVEY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE

HUMOUR IN ENGLISH LITERATURE
—A Chronological Anthology—
EASY POEMS I, II
HOW TO READ ENGLISH POETRY
DOROTHY WORDSWORTH’S JOURNALS
(With Introduction and footnotes)
A WEEK ON THE CONCORD AND MERRIMACK
RIVER (Shortened, with Introduction and Notes)
 R. II. BLYTH:

A HISTORY
OF
HAIKU
IN TV/O VOLUMES
VOLUME TWO

From Issa up to the Present

THE IIOKUSEIDO PRESS

©, 1964, by R. H. Blyth
All Rights Reserved

? IK
 CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION vii-lii

XXIV. POETS OF ISSA’S TIME .. 1

XXV. SHIKI: THE CRITIC ......... 21
XXVI. SHIKI: ON FURU-IKE YA 46
XXVII. SHIKI: THE HAIKU POET 77
XXVIII. THE MEIJI ERA ............... 101
XXIX. MEIJI POETS I ............... 108
XXX. MEIJI POETS II ............... 138
XXXI. MEIJI POETS III............... 162
XXXII. SANTOKA .......................... 173
XXXIII. THE NEW HAIKU 189
XXXIV. THE SHOW A ERA I 207
XXXV. THE SHOWA ERA II 232
XXXVI. MODERN POETS I ................. 254
XXXVII. MODERN POETS II ................. 281
XXXVIII. MODERN POETS III ................. 300
XXXIX. MODERN POETS IV ................. 311
XL. THE “BEST” MODERN HAIKU 321
XLI. SUMMARY.................................. 332
XLII. WORLD HAIKU 349

INDEX 365
 ILLUSTRATIONS
Tsuwabuki, by Ishii Hakutei. Frontispiece
Facing Page
Scarecrow, by Okamoto Ippei .......xxviii
|Ji T- <o M & V' o V' Ac o Hi l $ J;
There comes an idea
For the face of the scarecrow,—
How delightful!
Fir Trees and Bird, by Motokata Shurin ......... 8
Killifish, by Motokata Shurin............................. 40
Back from Fishing, by Kosugi Misei ............... 76
Tadpoles, by Usuda Aro .................................... 92
The Bonfire, by Ogawa Senyo .......................... 108
A Winter Day, by Hirafuku Hyakusui ............ 172
The Mulberry Field, by Motokata Shurin........ 236

The portraits on the dust-cover are of Ransetsu,

front, and Kikaku, back, the haiku being the fol­
lowing respectively:
# Ac ^ 311 lb
Higashi Hill,
Like a man sleeping
With a quilt over him.
5:5 <o & & M fc It
Its first note;
The uguisu
Is upside-down.
 INTRODUCTION
1
TECHNICAL TERMS

Haiku has quite a lot of technical terms which are

difficult to define and not easy to illustrate, since not only
do they refer to rather delicate relations or complicated
states of mind, but the words themselves have changed
in meaning over the centuries and do not mean the same
today as they did a hundred or a thousand years ago.
What makes the matter still more difficult is the fact that
a poet’s theory of poetry and the poems he actually writes
are like the professions and real life of men everywhere;
they often do not gibe. So Wordsworth, for example, did
not in fact employ “a selection of language really used
by men.”
To speak first of sabi. Sabi in the later waka poets
was a kind of beauty associated with loneliness, but in
the case of Basho the loneliness is rather contrasted with
the beauty, as in Kyorai’s verse:

Hanamori ya shiroki kashira wo tsukiaivase

The guardians
Of the cherry blossoms
Lay their white heads together.
Sabi, as being derived from sabiru, to rust, implies
something that is given by time, and is perhaps the
viii Technical Terms

ultimate foundation of all loneliness, since it is time which

separates even more than space. But this element of time
may be present, indeed must be so, at the moment of the
creation of a work of art or an action of value. The real
sabi is the timeless which does not disdain to use time.
According to Kyorai, in his Shishin Mondd,
sabi is not the subject of the verse but is the flavour or
colour of it. For example, an old man putting on his
armour to go off to the battle, or wearing brocade for a
banquet may have it, since sabi is in the mind of the
observer, and thus busy and bustling scenes as well as
quiet, and desolate ones may arouse sabi.
Shiori, and hosomi, also are explained by
Kyorai. Shiori, which is said to come from shioru, to
bend, implies a certain pitiful charm in the mind of the
observer and in the form of the verse, not in the subject.
Hosomi, which means slenderness, is closely connected
with yugen, the poeticality of the verse, shiori rather
with sabi.
Wabi is the “beauty” of poverty; it is “blessed are the
poor,” but blessed in the aesthetic rather than the moral
sense. Rikyu, 1521-1591, said that food that is enough to
hold body and soul together and a roof that does not leak
are sufficient, but with BashS, 1644-1694, an empty stom­
ach, at least temporarily, was necessary for haiku. A
leaky roof, or at least one that might leak at any moment,
is also one of the prerequisites for living according to the
Way of Haiku. The best example of wabi is the well-
known verse of Rotsu, the beggar-poet:

fik if iUAc -H- <D m

Toridomo mo neitte iru ka yogo no umi
Technical Terms ix

The water-birds too

Are asleep
On the lake of Yogo?
Shibumi is an astringent taste in contrast to a sweet
one. It therefore implies the opposite of sentimentality,
emotionality, romance. It is what distinguishes the poetry
of Wordsworth from that of Keats and the rest of them.
Austerity is a little different, for shibumi has its own
charm; austerity also belongs to masochism, whereas
shibumi and wabi only border on it. Aesthetically also,
the weak are stronger than the strong, a woman than a
man, night than day. This is brought out in a verse
typical of Basho:

J: < * H tf ft ft m fc
Yoku mireba nazuna hana saku kakine kana
Looking carefully,
A shepherd’s-purse is blooming
Under the hedge.
Shibumi is sometimes associated with iki, with which
it has no real connection. Iki is a (sexual) elegance,
restrained, it is true, but for the purpose of attraction.
Shibumi is entirely sexless, retired in its nature, and, if
anything, repulses rather than attracts. There is a hair’s
breadth between shibumi and iki, as there is between
Heaven and Hell.
Yugen, is an ancient Chinese term used in poetry,
and later in Zen writings, to signify what is mysterious
and “dark” in the religious sense. Linchi (Rinzai) says:

m,m ffi»% pf pf Jin.

x Technical Terms
“You monks, it is exceedingly difficult to have this
true mind; Buddhism is the Profound Essence; but
when it is grasped, life just free-wheeling.”
The 3C, mysterious essence, and :£;2.3C, Essence of the
essence, of Laotse and Chuanglse is almost entirely philo­
sophical. Literature is in this more delicate and not less
profound, that it embodies the way the Essence works, its
colour and perfume, its form rather than its matter.
Dengyo Daishi, 767-822, in his Isshin Kongo Kaitaiketsu,
—uses the expression: “All things have in
them the Wonderful Essence,” jjft&lAgain, in a
Chinese poem by Fujivvara Atsu, we have a line,
“Talking with a monk and knowing the reason
of the Essence.” In both of these, yugen is employed
in the (Chinese) religious, philosophical sense. Religious
writings of the Kamakura Period continued to use and
explain yugen. It was also employed to mean “deep and
difficult to attain,” with a mystical significance. But from
the Heian through the Yoshino Era the word was used
in connection with Chinese poetry, waka, music, and
dancing. Its use in the Preface of the Kohon Wakashu
has still a mystical meaning, and the first use of it in the
artistic, literary sense is said to be in the Wakatai Jisshu,
published by Mibu Tadamine, 860-920,
in 945 a.d. This work, imitating the Chinese classifica­
tion of verse, divides the form of waka into ten. Concern­
ing what he calls the Kojotai, fcjfi'jftu, class, he says that
the words themselves have nothing special about them,
but the verses have yugen, for example:

%X Z> A L h is. t?
Technical Terms xi

I would fain ask

Whether they have fallen or not,
But I have met no one
Come back from seeing
The cherry blossoms of my native place.
The discussion and practice of yugen goes on all through
the history of Japanese verse and comes to its climax
perhaps in No. The haikai poets, those of the Ushin
school, considered yugen to be the goal and aim of their
work. Sogi, in his Azuma Mondo, Jtr. answers the
question, “What is the fundamental form of renga?”
Waka has ten, so renga has ten, says Sosetsu.1 I
myself think it’s silly to divide them up like this. The
essential thing is that it must be long and high with
the ushin of yugen.
Ushin means, subjectively, sincerity of feeling; and
objectively, transcendental beauty. However, to get Basho’s
idea of yugen we must go back before Sogi to Shinkei, >0
tjjC, 1399-1474. He says in his Sasamegoto,
A certain man2 asked a master-poet,3 “As for the
Way of Poetry, what sort of training is necessary?"
He answered, “The crescent moon over the tall grasses
of a withered moor.” This was pointing to something
unsaid, something bleak and lonely, that is to be
intuitively grasped.
Wordsworth said, “Stern was the face of nature." The
word “stern" is a too strong for Shinkei’s meaning.
“Severely beautiful" also lacks the charm of the drooping

213fc{ll|. This was Shunzei, 1114-1204.

3 Mototoshi, 1055-1138.
xii Technical Terms

pampas grasses and the curve of the new moon. What

is interesting, too, is the reference to “training,” which
has the meaning of ascetic-artistic life. This is the yugen
of Basho and his followers.
All these terms mean almost nothing when used ab­
stractly, but concretely they are quite alive. My Siamese
cat who is very stupid but sweet has wabi. This cup I
am drinking out of has sabi; it comes out of the past to
me in its shape and texture. A No actor walks with
yugen, quite beyond time and place, yet here and now.
The meaning of wabi, sabi, and so on is on the one hand
to be decided by common usage and explained historically,
but on the other hand we may and should use them as
distinctly and deeply as we individually can. One thing
let us say, clearly and strongly: people who do not and
cannot and will not actually live a life of sabi and ivabi,
should not pretend to write about them.
The word “haiku” came into fashion in the Meiji Period
to mean a verse of 5, 7, 5 syllables. Before the Meiji
Period “haiku” was used to mean the verses, 5, 7, 5 or 7, 7
of haikai, that is haikai renga. It is so employed by
Kikaku in the Preface to his Minashiguri, /jgilg, published
in the 3rd year of Tenna, 1683. The reasons for the change
of “hokku” to “haiku” are: the desire to mark a revolu­
tion of taste, to some extent a return to the (good) taste
of Buson; to show the independence of the verse; and
from the oriental love of a change of name. “ Renga,” as
meaning a poem composed by two persons, may be found
as far back as in the Kojiki and the Manydshu.
Renga xiii

2
RENGA

The subject of renga, treated in Volume I, pages 40-45,

is so difficult it will be explained once more. The writing
of linked verses became exceedingly popular in the Muro-
machi Period, but in the following age of civil wars, 1490-
1600, it was gradually superseded by haikai renga, popular
and witty renga, the leaders being Yamazaki Sokan and
Arakida Moritake. The reasons for this change are various,
one being the fact that renga had got stuck in the (aristo­
cratic) mud; another, that civil war does not encourage
conservation, and the study and imitation of the classics.
Already in the Heian Period, 794-858, a light and
sportive spirit may be seen in renga. This was natural,
since for two or more persons to write a (long) poem
together a certain amount of bonhomie was necessary.
Also, it was natural that the poetry of verse should
gradually grow less, and be replaced by verbal tricks and
novelties. In the Kamakura Period, 1192-1333, renga had
divided itself into two schools, the “mindful,” and the
“mindless,” 4&0, the latter being inclined to wit, puns,
etc, and the former to the poetical spirit of waka. An
example of the “mindless” variety of renga; the authors
are not given:

& n fci S

Receiving a child
Unknown to the parents:
xiv Renga

Into our garden

lias thrust
The next door’s bamboo.
This kind of renga was not to the taste of the serious
poets among the aristocrats, and the renga of the Kama­
kura Period is chiefly of the “mindful” school. During
the period of the division of the court into Northern and
Southern, 1336-1392, renga came more into the hands of
non-aristocrats. Further, it was influenced by two men,
Gusai, and Yoshimoto, the editors of the Tsu-
kubashii,
The effect of having two persons write one verse was
of course to divide it into two in thought or spirit, or
even in subject; for example:

JSU: £> % & m tt & % X

The life of the old man
Has become a frail and sentimental thing.
Weak is the wind
Of autumn,
With its falling willow leaves.
In the Muromachi Period, renga became what may be
called popular, and a number of talented poets appeared,
among them Sogi, who made seriousness and elegance
(yugeri) the prime essentials, following the spirit of the
Shinkokinshu. Renga thus became an extended vvaka, and
in intention a very high and difficult art. Indeed for Basho
it was renga and not haiku which was his life and life-
work, and it would not be altogether wrong to say that
it was Shiki who destroyed haiku by separating it finally
Renga xv
from renga, and causing the collapse of both. The delicate
poetical relation between the verses of renga was considered
by Sogi and his followers, including Basho years later,
to be of greater poetical moment than the verses them­
selves. They wanted to do what Hazlitt said was Shake­
speare’s great power, to bring together apparently unrelated
things, and thus manifest their latent similarity or identity.

1? ti il] * j
Yuki nagara yamamoto kasumtt yiibe kana
Snow remaining,
The foot of the mountain is covered with mist,
This evening!
This is Sogi’s hokku, first verse, of 17 syllables, ending
with kana, an expression of admiration. The word “mist”
shows the season.

Yukii miztt toku umc niou sato

The waters are flowing; in the distance
A village smells of its plum-trees.
This is the waki-ku, the side verse, or second verse, of
14 syllables, by Shohaku. “Plum” shows the season, spring
still. The waki-ku is joined with the hokku by the as­
sociation of (melting) snow and running water.

fr © te — tr b $1 m H x X
Kawa-kaze ni hitomura yanagi haru miete
The river breeze
Shows us spring
In a clump of willows.
xvi Renga
This is the third verse; the season is again spring, seen
in the willows; the season of the hokku, the side-verse,
and the third verse must be the same. The third verse
should end in te, or ni, or tva; the present one ends in
te, miete.

Ftine sasu oto mo shiruki akegata

The sound of a boat being poled along
Is heard clearly in the dawn.
The first four verses proceed in the element of water.

r ft & § d m % & 1- 28 * 5> h

Tsuki ya nao kiri tvataru yo ni nokornran
The moon—
The mist floating across the evening—
Still remains.
The season has changed to autumn. The moon, which
should be brought into the 7th verse, is here introduced
into the 5th. Up to the present verse the emphasis was
on sound. Now, the theme rises from the surface of the
river to the vault of heaven.

Shimo oku nohara aki iva kttre keri

Hoar-frost on field and moor-land,
Autumn
Draws towards its close.
The season is still autumn. This verse is a poor one,
without originality.
Haiku and Chinese Poetry xvii
nft < ts t <o h i> ts. < /;>: a* It r
AV/Aw niushi no kokoro to mo naku kusa karete
The grasses wither
Without a thought
Of the crying insects.
The season continues to be autumn. There is some
animism here. This is how renga goes. It should be
imitated in the West by two or three or four poets writing
alternate couplets.

3
HAIKU AND CHINESE POETRY

Even in Manyo times, Japanese verse was already being

influenced by Chinese verse. Japan had its own poetry,
and the simplicity of Shinto already affected it and still
affects it, and for good, but the Taoism and Zen that
mingled with Chinese poetry was a much deeper thing.
Japanese poets, in their reading of Chinese verse, were
unavoidably appreciating Taoism and Zen in their best
possible forms. This reading of Chinese poetry has con­
tinued from the earliest times up to today, when Chinese
poems are read in school. It is possible to go through the
vast compendium of Chinese verse, noting poems especially
which must have struck the Japanese readers, who, up
to the age of Basho, were unconsciously and unwittingly
looking forward to his creation of what we now know as
haiku, and who, from his time up to now, have been
looking backwards consciously and knowingly to those
same poems that still nourish the spirit of haiku in spite of
xviii Haiku and Chinese Poetry
the great change of heart that has come over the Japanese
people and their literature.
The Book of Songs (Shikyo) j$$S. a collection of three
hundred and five poems written between 1766 and 403 n.c.
had the same simplicity as the earliest Japanese verses,
but more elegance. The following is the first verse of an
elegiac poem:

0 m ^ T ff M&MB.

Climbing up to the top of a bare hill,

I gaze, and think of my father.
My father said, “When you go into service,
You must work from morning to night.
Do it well, I pray you;
Come back, do not stay there!”
This sort of thing comes out in haiku of degaivari, (ii
# 0 , changing of servants. Recently, few haiku are written
on such a subject.
The poems of the time of Han are also by unknown
authors. The subjects of the famous Nineteen Old Poems
are the same as before, the sorrows of parting, homesick­
ness, the loneliness of a deserted or widowed wife, grieving
at the transciency of life. The appearance of Taoism and
the idea of heavenly beings is a special feature of Han
verses, though they are still naive, with a natural techni­
que and pastoral flavour. There is some romantic tendency,
but we never leave the real world. This is a characteristic
of haiku, even in modern times. The last four lines of
“ Those who Depart grow Distant Day by Day,” 0
Haiku and Chinese Poetry xix

fib, were repeated again and again in Japan, though so

much smaller than China:

am$mm.
n $ % m 1$. & m 5H &
The sad wind blows the white aspens;
The plaintive sound makes him melancholy.
He thinks of going back to his native village,
But when he wishes to return, there is no way to go.
No Japanese poet, and no later Chinese poet ever
attained to the Biblical simplicity of The Funeral Song:

%mm mkm$
A —* 5 fcr Jtff &?r-
The dew on the leeks,
How fast it dries!
But though it dries,
It falls again next morning.
If a man departs,
When shall he come again?
During the era of the Six Kingdoms1 there was civil
war, and many recluses and hermits appeared, such as
Chuko Pungming, who afterwards became famous
serving Liupei, gijtfg. The Emperor Wu (Bu) 155-220
a.d., wrote a poem The Cold, Painful March,
towards the end of which occur the following lines:

® ft — *
* ft 3E # IB- & PS A ft SS-
BWMfe &■
1 Of the Kingdom of Wei, M, which together with Sui, fSfi, is
included in the literature of the Six Kingdoms.
xx Haiku and Chinese Poetry
When I would return to the East,
The waters are deep, bridges all broken.
I stand irresolute in the middle of the road.
At a loss, having mistaken the way,
Dusk falls, with no place to spend the night.
This experience is one which every haiku poet worthy
of the name wanted to have. It is a kind of asceticism,
almost poetical masochism, with comfort, happiness, and
the welfare state seen as the true hell of meaninglessness.
In the poems of Chin, one of the Six Kingdoms,
there is the ideal and the practice of the tasteful, jjfiflfg,
which values nature and at the same time the emotion
of the poet towards the aesthetic qualities of the thing
itself, quite apart from its romantic associations and the
caprices of the poet’s own feelings. This is haiku per se.
It is Wordsworth’s “looking steadily at the object,” to­
gether with the poet looking steadily at himself looking
steadily at the object. An example from the last lines of
a poem by Luchi, I^j^, 261-303 a.d. He is journeying
over mountains and rivers:
<© ® wm,
m nm m m-
Reining the horse, I lean against a high rock,
And listen to the faint sound of the sad wind.
The pure dew that has fallen gleams whitely:
The bright moon,—how clear it is!
Smoothing the pillow, I get no sleep;
Shaking my garments, I sink for long into lonely
thought.
Tao Yuanming, (Toemmei) was and still con-
Haiku and Chinese Poetry xxi

tinucs to be for the Japanese the ideal poet. The aim of

life is to retire from it. This is the monkish ideal, with
the great difference that one’s best days are to be spent
in the quiet contemplation, not of the perfection of God,
but the naturalness of Nature.
To Toemmei, however, man is something which Nature
dreams:
it. i* v; u £ m.
The life of man is like an illusion;
At last it always returns to an empty nothingness.
Bashd’s death verse, Issa’s death verse only repeat this.
The poetry of the Tang Era, especially as contained
in the Tdshisen, A Collection of To Poetry, had a profound
effect on Japanese literature in general, and haiku in
particular. This anthology of Chinese verse written during
two hundred and eighty nine years is credited to Li
Panling, ^^(fd. born 1544, who wrote the preface. Li
Panling intended to make a much more extensive col­
lection, in three parts, of the Han, Gi, Six Dynasties;
Tang, and Ming Eras, called Kokon Sliisaku, and began
the Tang first, finished it, and wrote the Preface. He
died before he could complete the rest. His friend Wang
Shichin, EEiOrjT, completed it in thirty six volumes, and
removed the Preface to the Tang division. The followers of
Hanryu, however, published the Tang division separately.
In the Complete Tang Poetry, nine hundred volumes,
there are included two thousand two hundred poets, with
more than 88,900 poems. In the Toshisen there are about
600.
The Tdshisen, now used as a school text-book in Japan,
came to Japan about the Keicho Era, 1596-1611, or the
xxii Haiku and Chinese Poetry
Genna Era, 1615-1624; Basho was born in 1644. OgyQ
Sorai, born 1665, and Hattori Nankaku, born 1681, bis
disciple, strongly advocated the reading of it.
The following are some examples from the Toshiscn
which the haiku poets from Basho’s time must have read
with especial profit and pleasure:
& in # & m i&
mma*
to m m m j&
© a ft a at
m #ftJftft.
m ®s jHs m
ft fffl ft s
A Zen Hermitage behind Hazanji Temple
One clear morning I went to an old temple;
The early sun shone on the tall trees,
A winding path led to a bower.
Trees and flowers grow wildly round this Zen temple;
The mountain scenery pleases the minds of the birds;
The reflections on the deep pond empty one’s heart.
Silence accompanies all things;
Only the voice of the temple bell is heard.

m
0 # Oj.
ft & m & g.
*&&#
ifll w.
Ilaiku and Chinese Poetry xxiii

The Deer Palisade

Morning and evening I come to see this lonely mountain,
A visitor, alone.
I hardly realise where 1 am, in this pine grove;
Here and there are the footprints of deer.

& 0
&mam
s ft n & m-
# ia a tf.
& A $5 A A.
A Day of Autumn
The sunset shines upon the village ways;
Sad I am, but with whom shall I speak?
Along these old roads people pass seldom;
The autumn wind sways the millet. i

wm#
oj
mu 0 ®am
A5 A.

A Mountain Hut in Spring

Over the Garden of Liang2 the crows criss-cross in
the evening;
As far as the eye can see, two or three houses, and
loneliness.
1 Chitzu, made a poem grieving at the destruction of his
land, looking at the barley and millet growing among the ruins
of the palace.
2 The Emperor Hsiao, #, made this garden in Han times.
xxiv Season Words and Brevity in Iiaiku
The trees of the garden know not that the people
are all dead and gone;
Spring comes again with its flowers, as in olden times.

m ft ft m '
ft m m t # m m.
m m m fpj
$r #Mfc A ft B
^ 111 - % ft ffi
Wandering in Spring
Below the Castle of Iyang the grasses are green and
rank;
The water of the valley turns east, turns west.
Not a soul sees the scented trees; the flowers scatter
by themselves;
Along the single path through the spring mountains
birds sing in vain.1
In the case of nearly all these poems, a haiku poet
would have made each line into a haiku. This is “Blessed
are the (poetically) poor.”

4
SEASON WORDS AND BREVITY IN HAIKU

It was the genius of the Japanese poets of the Muro-

machi Period, 1392-1490, that perceived the season in each
natural phenomenon, each plant, animal, or human activity,
by which it became “a symbol proper,” as Carlyle says.
‘“In vain” is the literal translation, for “emptily.”
 Season Words and Brevity in Ilaiku xxv
II is significant that renga used the flowers arranged in
the alcove of the meeting-room in the hokku, the first
verse of the series, showing not only the deep connection
between the various arts which in Europe are more
independent, but that nature learns from art; things have
value only in so far as they are humanised.
Another way of looking at the season word is to take
haiku as having four subjects only, spring, summer, autumn,
winter, (with the New Year as a fifth according to the
saijiki, index of season words.) This idea would give to
each haiku a vastness and quarter-universality which not
many actually possess, but always to be conscious of the
season when writing or reading a haiku is a tremendous
gain in scope, and gives the particular thing an expansive
power which should always end in infinity and eternity
while remaining itself finite and temporary.
The form of haiku was not questioned until the turn
of the (20th) century. Neither its shortness nor the 5, 7, 5
division offered any serious obstacle, apparently, to any­
thing the older haiku poets wanted to say. The brevity
of haiku is somewhat different from the Latin dislike of
length, which was partly due to the desire to avoid the
reader’s taedium. Horace in The Satires I, X, 9, tells us
another reason for being brief: “Est brevitate opus, ut
currat sententia.” This idea that brevity is necessary so
that the thought may run on is a dangerous one. It leads
to programme music. Sam Weller’s reason for writing a
short love-letter is more to the point: “She’ll wish there
was more, an’ that’s the great art o’ letter-writing.” In
The Parting John Morris says,
Like angel’s visits, short and bright,
and this is what haiku must be. Marlowe’s “Infinite
r

0
xxvi Season Words and Brevity in Haiku
riches in a little room” is too sentimental.
In The Merchant of Venice, Lorenzo says, ‘‘Wilt thou
show the whole wealth of thy wit in an instant?” This
is what haiku attempts to do, and any haiku poet could
say with Propertius, “Non sient apta meae grandia vela
rati,” (Vast sails suit not my craft). But the brevity does
not imply any paucity. The world-view, the philosophy,
the absolute, the anima mundi is there, but not shamelessly
exposed. In the Inferno, LXII 2, Dante says:
0 voi che avete gl’intelletti sani
Mirate la dottrina che s’asconde
Sotte il velame degli versi strani.
This Zen expressing by not expressing, which in practice
means by under-expressing, is necessitated by the fact that
unlike the rest of the creation man has an ineradicable
tendency to express more than he is impressed. Viewed
sympatheticaly, this may be due to a wish to receive a
deeper impression by over-expression, but it is always a
failure. In Some Reminiscences, 1912, Conrad writes:
I have remained mindful of that sobriety of interior
life, that asceticism of sentiment, in which alone the
naked form of truth, such as one feels it, can be
rendered without shame.
The last two words give us the profoundest reason for
the brevity of haiku. When we hear Beethoven, we often
feel ashamed, not of him, but for him. Even with Bach,
in some of the religious works we feel uneasy; in the case
of Mozart almost never. Zen often uses the simile of
lightning or a spark to describe the speed with which we
must answer every question that life asks us. The speed
is necessary to prevent (separate) intellection or emotion
Haiga xxvii
from dessicating or muddying the original sensation-ex­
perience. Thought and emotion cause us to feel shame;
sensation does not.

5
HAIGA

Haiga, haiku pictures, are the art of imperfection, an

imperfection which is not the result of unskilfulness on
the part of the artist, but which belongs rather to nature
itself. In this sense also, haiga are perhaps the best
introduction to haiku. They lack a story, thought, emotion,
beauty, religion, abstraction, but not nature, not humour,
not human warmth. “Haiga” seems to be quite a modern
word; even Shiki did not use it, apparently. The word
haiku even was first used about the time of Shiki to
differentiate poetical verses from those of the tsukinami
poets of the period between Issa and Shiki, for which
hokku seems somehow suitably old-fashioned and fusty.
When we think about what haiga is in the actual
examples, there come to mind the pictures and sketches
of Toba Sojo, Sesshu, Hakuin, Ikkyu, Gocho, and Sengai,
with their Zen, and, from Genroku times, Shokado, Ryuho,
Itcho, Kyoroku, Buson, Issa, and so on.
From these it is not easy to make out what exactly
haiga is and what it is not, but we may note something
that is true of much Chinese and Japanese painting:
artistic brevity, and, what is profoundly connected with
it, the use of meaningful blank space. However, simpli­
city has a meaning only in relation to complexity, and
xxviii Ha iffa

haiga does not suggest much with little, but rather em­
phasises what is (poetically) important, what is overlooked
by the ordinary (unpoetical) view of the object. Thus
haiga may be minute, and “count the stripes of the tulip,”
if this is the significant part of the thing. Haiga omits
what God should have omitted; it docs not, as fantastic and
subjective art may do, create things which God did not.
In this respect haiga is a self-limited art, and includes a
machine with an uneasy sense of having betrayed Nature.
It might be urged, however, that European oil-painting
is more naturalistic than haiga, in that it paints not only
the apple, but the plate on which it rests, and the table
and the wall also, against which it is seen, and with which
it harmonises or contrasts or both. In suspending the
apple in mid-air, quite against the law of gravity, the
haiga painter wishes to show us something we forget, that
an apple not only grows for us, and to glorify God, or
whatever his name is, but exists for itself and by itself
and in itself, full of a quiet wonder and power. This is
the mystery of things, but this mystery has nothing mys­
terious about it. It is only a common or garden apple,
like all the rest, yet different from them.
As far as colour is concerned, black &nd white is best,
just as one thing is poetical and two are not, just as God
should not have created the universe. It is said that the
Greeks painted their statues with colours. Well, the Greeks
could not have written haiku or done haiga.
Besides haiga there are zenga, Zen sketches, manga,
comic pictures, kyoga, “mad” pictures, Otsue, and so on,
and it is interesting to note that these are much more
similar to each other than the corresponding haiku, Zen,
senryu, and kyoka (kyoku). However, haiku often con-
Uaiga xxix

descends to be quite openly humorous.

Somehow a haiga always seems to need writing on it,
a Chinese poem, waka, haiku, or some prose. This sort
of thing, a picture with some writing on it, began in the
Heian Age. The writing and the picture may be the same
in subject, or different, or distantly connected. The third
is the best. If the subjects are entirely different there is
no reason for their being together. If they are the same
there is an inevitable comparison between the picture and
the verse.
It is usual to paint the picture first, and then add the
verse, but the reverse order also is known. Buson and
Gekkei would write the poem first. There is a famous
story about Tessai and Rengetsu-ni, died 1875. When
Tessai was young he used to paint pictures beside Ren-
getsu-ni’s waka and sell them. Before Rengetsu-ni died
she wrote many waka and gave them to Tessai, saying,
“After I’m dead you will be in a fix, so I have written a
lot of verses to leave you. Paint pictures for them, and
sell them.”
Basho painted a picture of three crows on a dilapitated-
looking tree beside his verse:
A crow
Perched on a withered tree
In the autumn evening.
Basho, who learned from Kyorai, usually painted the
same subjects as the verse. Kikaku did so too, though he
associated with Itcho. The following verse by Joso was
written on a side-view of Daruma:

m m & £ ft £ & «> * ?& com

Shitnobara no nezame nezame ya karno no koe
XXX Haiga

Awakening from sleep again and again

With frosty bowels,—
The voices of ducks.
This was written probably when Joso was living in
Butchoan Hermitage by Shonan. Daruma also must have
experienced “frosty bowels.”
Ransetsu wrote a verse about the Milky Way on a
picture, not by himself, of bamboos:

& £ ¥ * m # 0 fc 3 0 JH
Mayonaka ya furikawaritaru amano-gawa
At midnight,
The Galaxy
Had changed its position.
In this combination we may suppose that the line of
stars is seen above the bamboos. In the following, by
Ryuho, also on a picture of bamboos, with a fence, the
verse is simply an explanation of the picture, and the
picture an illustration of the verse:

t 9 & <o t
Ikegaki ya take no kodomo no mori-menoto
The hedge
Is the wet-nurse guarding
The bamboo-shoots.
This verse has a pun which makes the shoots children;
the hedge protects them.
When the subject of the haiku and the haiga are the
same we have two forms of one thing. When the haiku
and the haiga are different in subject, but with some
Haiku, The Poetry of Sensation xxxi
inner connection, we have two forms of two tilings that
are united in some essential point.
Haiga, let us say once more, like haiku and the art of
tea, and flower-arrangement, are not much in little, but
enough in little. It is in haiga that we see most clearly,
directly and instantaneously the nature of haiku, its willing
limitations; its “sensationism”; its unsentimental love of
nature; its lack of iki, elegance; its appreciation of im­
perfection; its skilful unskilfulness; its “blessed are the
poor”; its combination of the poetic vague and the poetic
definite; its human warmth; its avoidance of violence and
terror; its dislike of holiness; its turning a blind eye to
grandeur and majesty; its unobtrusive good taste; its still,
small voice.

6
HAIKU, THE POETRY OF SENSATION

Haiku need no virtue or vice, beauty or ugliness, right

or wrong. “Seek ye first the Kingdom of Sensation, and
all these things shall be added unto you.” There is nothing
improper in ornamenting one’s works by means of religion
or philosophy or morality or romance or superstition, pro­
vided that there is something fundamental which it orna­
ments, the pure sensation. Or to put the matter in another
way, all the “thoughts that wander through eternity,” the
“unheard melodies,” the “eternal passion, eternal pain,”
the yearning and despair, the desire for immortality, the
desire for death itself are pedagogues to lead us back to
the infinitely meaningful touch and smell and taste and
xxxii Haiku, The Poetry of Sensation
sound and sight. Thus the best way to fulfil the object
of life and get close to a flower is to eat it, not just look
at it or read a poem about it, and that is why Tennyson
plucked it out of the crannied wall, and held it in his
hand. (The rest of the poem is only mimbling-mambling).
Heat and cold are the simplest of sensations and apparently
the farthest from poetry. Extremes meet, however, and
in the following verses, some good, and some not so good,
concerning the heat of summer, we see how the older
haiku poets expressed the depth of this (disagreeable)
sensation, and, making a virtue of necessity, showed us
once more that illusion is enlightenment, enlightenment
illusion, and that enlightenment and enheatenment are the
same thing.
# ’b * % HR I- it 3 # £ £ &
Ishi mo ki mo manako ni hikani atsusa kana

Stones and trees

Dazzling the eyes,—
Oh, the heat! Kyorai

£ m
Koeta tote jiman wa sasenu atsusa kana

Fat chaps
Rendered prideless:1
The heat! Choryu

m & BE XL m * ft < m £ frtL n± n

Kabocha koe ware iva yaseyukti atsusa kana

The pumpkin is getting fatter,

I’m getting thinner,—
Oh what heat! Toun
1 At this time the Japanese were proud of being fat.
Ilaihu, The Poetry oj Sensation xxxiii
m Ji x r m * h A Hi) <» % £ * tr. m
Kitmo miate a me fu ranu mu no utsusa liana

Clouds seen gathering,

Rain not yet falling,—
The heat! Kokyd

» *
Akaki hi no umi ni ochikomu atsusa kana

The red sun

Sinking down into the sea,—
Heat! Soseki

b * ± % $ at <D
Onta ho ni kami naburaruru atsusa kana

The child on my back

Playing with my hair,—
Oh, what a heat! Sono

* #
Tsitma mo ari ho mo aru ie no atsusa kana

A wife I have,
And children too,—
A house of heat! Hyoka

;fc IS
i45<7«<? shite onorc kuyashiki atsusa kana

Over-sleeping,
I curse myself:
The heat now! Taigi
xxxiv IJaiku, The Poetry of Sensation

T a # + & i- & tc s k £ />' ts. fj ffi

Junin ga toiro ni netaru atsusa liana

Ten sleepers
In ten different postures,—
The heat! Jakuu

sa m ic & <n> # tr % £ •a #
Haizen ni onna no dki atsusa kana

So many maids
Serving at table
In this heat! Kyorai

m w. v> % < m fHi ® ^ ns a

Junrei no tsuku hatagoya no atsusa kana

Pilgrims coming to stay

At this country inn,—
The heat! Reihaku

*
Rome nedan gutgu to sagaru atsusa kana

The price of rice

Steadily falling,—
The heat! The heat! Issa

± up
Oari no tatami wo aruku atsusa kana

A huge ant
Walks over the tatami;
The heat! Shird
 Haiku, The Poetry of Sensation XXXV

fpi ft i- Ml <r> n £ < # £ fc x m

Saka gura ni hae no hoc kiku atsusa kana

The voice of Hies

Heard in a wine-cellar,—
The heat! Taigi
!
T- co :/f fc M la CO Hi ^ O * ft £ &
i/s/ri wo sc wi yawe no dekitsuru atsusa kana

The bull’s back

Is roofed,
In the heat. Kakd

*mc
Hokumci no uo to naritaki atsusa kana

Would I were a fish

In the Northern Sea,
With this heat! Furuike Asei

* % is® M M
Kiri no ha ni hokori no tamaru atsusa kana

Paulownia leaves
Covered with dust!
Oh, the heat! Kooku

# — o co fg /5r ft t ft £ ii* & h &

Mi hitotsu no okidokoro naki atsusa kana

Not a place
To put oneself,—
The heat! Bokuya
xxxvi Haiku, The Poetry of Sensation
& <0 n L K) t g 5 #f 5 ft & m
Hamaguri no ktichi shimctc irn atsusa Uana

The clam
Has shut up its mouth
In the heat. Basho

0 <o % $ m <o k <r> m & a %

Hi no atsusa tarai no soko no unka kana

In the bottom of the tub,

Rice insects:
The heat of the day! Bonchd

III J&&<T> $ <T> & ft K A

Yamashizu ga hitai no kobu no atsusa kana

A wen
On the wood-cutter’s forehead:
The heat! Kikaku

» m
Atsuki hi ya tori no yukiki ni kaze mo nashi

Birds going to and fro

With not a breath of wind:
A hot day! Tentoku

£ *
Hagakure wo koroge dete uri no atsusa kana

The melons have rolled

Out of their leafy shelter:
The heat! Kyorai
llaiku, The Poetry of Sensation xxx vii
% <D 1C ) & ts #• /;» ts. a fca
Niwaturi no suna tii surikomu atsusa kana

The fowls
Rubbing themselves into the sand:
The heat! Fukoku

fit A <d ffi m co m at -&■ & a* ft m ft

Byon in no kago no hae on atsusa kana

A sick person in a palanquin,

The flies being driven away:
The heat! Buson

sE-tt m ft
Hashii shite saishi too sakuru atsusa kana

Going out on the verandah

To get away from the wife and children,—
The heat! Buson

B: T EQ ffi
Waga yado tva heta no tatetaru atsusa kana

My house,—
How badly it was built!
The heat! Denpuku

*
Atsuki hi ni naniyara uzutnu karasu kana

A crow
Busy burying something,
On a hot day. Issa
xxxviii Haiku, The Poetry of Sensation
ft ft A, -C 8 fc * » 3 fife & St
Sumotori to narandc netaru atsusa kana

Sumo wrestlers
Sleeping side by side,—
The heat! Rito

& flu <0 fc £ ft T # L#i<D tTr ft 3£ Ijfl

Matsuyani no nadare te atsushi eda no ore

Resin oozing
Down a hot, broken
Pine branch. Gomei

& # BfciSifcfcfcfcJBrM* D
Atsuki hi ni bozu ni naro to omoi keri

I made up my mind
To become a monk,
This hot day! Tosei

& t ft i m
Ichi-uma no shito no ka kusaki atsusa kana

The horse-market;
How their piss stinks!
The heat! Masafusa

+ ft
Sono hito iva gojukkan-mc no atsusa kana

That chap
Has fifty kamme1
Of heat. Shida
1187.5 kilograms.
Haiku, The Poetry of Sensation xxxix

m <r> % & V\
i/so wo /aW s/»7c twin no atsusa kana

Noin,1—
On his pretended journey,—
His heat! Yayu

Yd V' it -7' it ix J* it -7- X 0 t % is -til W

Daila ko tva outa ko yori mo atsuki kana

More than a child on the back,

A child in the arms,—
The heat! Yayu

-x m.
Oari no tatami wo araku atsusa kana
± m
A huge ant
Walks over the tatami;
Ah, the heat! Shiro

B $£ it b X ff <o % £ ts &
Fiirin wa narade tokei no atsusa kana

The wind-bell is silent:

The heat
Of the clock. YayQ

is -?■ $
Utnabae no kasa wo hanarenu atsusa kana

The flies from the horse

Do not leave my kasa;
Oh, the heat! Shiki
1 He wrote a waka about being on a journey, and then stopped
at home, pretending to be away. i
xl Haiku, The Poetry oj Sensation

& & 35 * ft fl tli Hi

Keisei no asc no nti wo urn alsusa kana

The sweaty body

Of the courtezan:
She sells its heat. Yayu

# F IS D 36" & til Hr

Idohori no ukiyo e detaru atsusa kana

The well-digger
Comes out into this transitory world,
And its heat. Yayu

tii Hr
Kobukusha to iwarete kaya no atsusa kana

“Blessed with many children,”

But in the mosquito net,—
How hot it is! Yayu

M W. o 4» *$> m Hf
Tokibi no naka yuku kasa no atsusa kana

The kasa
Passing through the Indian corn,—
How hot they look! Yayu

If @ & <D III j6* ffi fc fe * ft £ ^ &

Shinanoji no yania ga ni ni naru atsusa kana

On the road to Shinano,

The mountain is a burden I bear,—
Oh, the heat, the heat! Issa
Ilaiku, The Poetry of Sensation xli

ft < Z b 2L ti & * 7S & is < -T ft

Alsukurushi midarc goltoro ya rai wo kiku

Oppressive heat;
My mind in a whirl,
I listen to the peals of thunder. Shiki

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Kaze ikka ninau atsusa ya uchiwa-uri

The fan-seller:
A load of wind he carries,—
Ah, the heat! Kako

yf m <o m Ti it 0 <n> i> 6 % Ip ts. & ft

Fuha-no-scki hiru wa hi no mom atsusa kana

The barrier of Fuha;

At midday
Heat leaks through. Yayfi

fig ic 3&» ft
Banslio ni chirinokoritam atsusa kana

With the evening bell,

There is scattered around
The day’s remaining heat. Chiyo-jo

-xm <d ± * % <d &$ £

Kome-guni no jdjo-kitsu no atsusa kana

For a rice country

A splendid, first-class
Heat! Issa

:
xlii Haiku, The Poetry of Sensation

n * K m 1* £ t 5# ts. * jl
Mannaka ni zen suete am atsusa kana
The table
Put in the middle of the room,—
That’s how hot it is! Sokyu

m (O K ft b * fc % % ts ts •7- m
Yasctitna no shiri narabetaru atsusa kana
Thin horses,
Their hindquarters all in a row,—
The heat! Shiki

JbfcP T &
liuiva talete atari hito naki atsusa kana
A hoe standing there,
No one to be seen,—
The heat! Shiki

^ !) <o 41 Ik <o % £ & ts K A

O/o&o baliari no naka ni onna no atsusa kana
Nothing but men;
And a woman there,—
How hot she is! Kikaku

p± JER.
Bottori to momo ochiru hi no atsusa kana
The heat
On a day when peaches
Fall plop! Toho
Haiku, 'The Poetry of Sensation xliii
m o fs li b 0 r III gfi CO # $ lb U %
Taki no oto wa arite yamaji no atsusa kuna

The sound of a waterfall V

Along the mountain path,—
The heat! Shunko

* h x- o a V t t <D % zife G ¥Sl

Ame yandc yappari moto no atsusa katia

The rain stops,

And exactly as before,—
The heat! Keira

“Jr m (C 0 <0 $ i~ & CO & St £ tt

Furu-gura ni hi no sasu ie no atsusa kana

The sun shining

On the old white warehouse,—
The heat in the house! Gochu

=p &
Ama-ga-ya ni hizakana no niou atsusa kana

In the fisherman’s house,

The smell of dried fish,
And the heat. Shiki

fccotli^tf^coko^co^ffSs % n
A no yama mo kyo no atsusa no ytikue kana

Yonder mountain
Is where the heat of today
Has gone. Onitsura
xliv Haiku, The Poetry of Sensation

n &
Katatsuburi no haura c maivaru atsusa kana

The snail goes round

To the underside of the leaf,
In the heat. Chinshi

ft Z A fc $3 £ % V' te & % t& & ffi

Kuril hito ni mono wo mo iwanti atsusa kana

He says nothing
To anybody who comes:
The heat!1 Shingi

§1 ^ 1C fj j&> & Jfr <D tb O $ #5 W IE

Hiki-shio ni ugokanu fune no atsusa kana

In the ebb-tide,
A ship is motionless:
The heat! Hyakuri

£ Uj
Noboraneba naranu yama miru atsusa kana

Looking at a mountain
I have to climb:
The heat! Shizan

a- # l iR © ? < mom & ^

Fune atsushi nozokare nozoku yami no kao

In boats, faces in the dusk,

Looking, and being looked at,—
The heat! Ivikaku
1 On a painting of Daruma.
Ilaiku, The Poetry of Sensation xlv
ft Z&<0 V.Jj t iHf © DO fc « fc D ff D £
Alsuki yo no ni to ni no ai ni netari keri

Sleeping at night1
Between baggage and baggage,—
The heat! Issa

31 t ti t) M t It ft b & ft m £
Kumo to nari atne to wa naranti atsusa kana

Clouds, yes;
Rain, no:
The heat! Sokushi

tt ill
7/i *6>o samasu tsuki naki yoi no atsusa kana

There is no moon this evening

To cool the day
With its heat! Rosen

m &
Iza kaite atsusa wasuren Fuji no yuki

Well, I’ll draw

The snow of Mount Fuji,
To forget the heat! Kisoku

V' o t> £ m < t % £

Ikazuchi wo toku kiku yo no atsusa kana

In the evening,
Listening to the far-off thunder,
The heat! Ganshitsu
In a boat.
xlvi Haiku, The Poetry of Sensation

& § 0 felfltXiite 9 ft Mil

Aisuhi hi wo umi ni irclari mogamigawa

The Mogami-River
Has swept the hot day
Down into the sea. Basho

4a fc 6 fife J$L tfk

Ftt/t ni hi no kakurc kanctarti atsusa kana

The sun can’t be hidden

Even by Mount Fuji:
The heat! Seibi

pfc D $ 5 T‘ H]f fr < ^ ^ & fife 1(5 tt

Furisode hareyuku sora no atsusa kana

It was going to rain,

And now the sky is clearing,—
The heat! Kagy5

L3£-$e 5fe fP
Yaseuma no kuratsubo atsushi wara ichi-wa

The skinny horse;

A sheaf of straw
On the hot saddle. Shiho

# JSL
Yuku uma no ato sae atsuki hokori kana

After the horse goes,

A hot cloud
Of dust. Sampu
Ilaihu, The Poetry of Sensation xlvii

(O -t ft fc -6 ft £ fili m 31
Mono k'isele sarn no sunelaru alsusa liana
Putting some clothes on him,
The monkey is sulky
In the heat. Choso

m ^ if ic fi- ti $ % z m
Kcdamono no mimi ni hone naki atsusa liana
The ears of the beasts
Have no bones in them,
In this heat. Ichiro

A t? V' X Wi 1C < li -f £ ft* £ $ « ft

Uri muiie saru ni kuwasnru atsusa kana
They peeled a melon
And gave it to the monkey,
It was so hot! Kikaku

%
Neko no me no hart ni nattaru atsusa kana
The cat’s eyes
Have become like needles
In the heat. SuikS

s m
Shirasuna ni suzume ashi hiku atsusa kana
The sparrows
Are dragging their feet in the white sand:
The heat! Chibo
xlviii Haiku, The Poetry of Sensation
M> % & ft UM co -'ft }& & 7-
Tori mo konu akagone yane no atsusa l'.ana
Birds don’t come any more
On the copper roof,
It’s so hot! Kisu

m m
Ao-bae no uo no me seseru atsusa kana
Bluebottles
Are picking at the eyes of the dead fish,—
The heat! Chiryu

% ®
Ki wo ochite hebi no chi wo hau atsusa kana
A snake, fallen from the tree,
Is crawling on the ground
In the heat. Shikyu

m < * t n £ Mj x jg s m & % K
Ugoku ka to take too mite iru atsusa kana
Looking at the bamboos
To see if they are moving,—
The heat! Genshi

5S tf fc fc & »*> T i- 3 o tb O § 17 A
Michibata ni mayu hosu kasa no atsusa kana
Drying cocoons
At the side of the road,
The heat! Kyoroku
Ilaiku, The Poetry of Sensation xlix

ft 5 « t t Ci >J> 'H 'I' V M : Mi A A

Alsufii hi ya shir.am nonaha no mkhi tnisuji

Coming to crossroads
On an unknown moor,
A hot day. Rangai

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Atsuhi hi ya umuya no no ho no niihnilun.nrn

Sacks of bran
In a stable;
A hot day. hi;'

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Oku-no-ma no hibuisu wo mitaru atsusa kana

Viewing a mystic Budda

In an interior chamber,
The heat! Sempu

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Koban no kemuri mo atsuhi iori kana

In the hermitage,
The smoke of the incense-burner
Is hot. Onitsura

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Suzushisa mo atsusa mo hashi no kuruma kana

The coolness,
And the heat too,
The cart over the bridge. Tantan
1 Haiku, The Poetry of Sensation
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Yo ya atsuki kabc no daruma mo niramtt tiaru

It is a hot world,
And the wall-gazing Daruma also
Is glaring. Seibi

3
Fiirin no oto mo shibutoki atsnsa kana

The sound of the wind-bells

Is audacious
In this heat! Unkaku

Beni mite mo oshiroi mite mo tada atsuslii

Looking at the rouge,

And looking at the powder,—
Just heat! Seibi

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Nemurcdomo dgi iva ugokii atsnsa kana

Even when asleep,

The fan still moves,—
The heat! Fukoku

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Monomott no koe ni mono kirn atsnsa kana

Hearing, “Is anyone at home?”

And putting on my clothes,—
The heat! Yayu
Haiku, The Poetry of Sensation li

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llada kakusu onna no tsumi no atsusa liana
What misdeeds in a former life!
A woman must hide her skin
Even in such a heat. Den

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Chichi tarcte mizit kumu shim no atsusa kana
The breasts hanging down,
A woman of low birth draws water
In the heat. Shohaku

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Chimmari to bikuni no arttku atsusa kana
Compact and prim,
A nun walking
In the heat. Shosen

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Atsuki hi ya mugon zenji no niramiai
A hot day;
With a silent Zen master,
Glaring at each other. Seibi
Ninety six haiku on heat. In Shiki’s Bunrui Haiku
Zenshu, 12 Volumes, under atsusa we are given 533 verses,
and in the last seventy years a great many more have
been written on this subject. As said before, haiku is the
poetry of sensation; it is poetry-sensation, the sensation
perceived poetically; the poetry of a thing perceived sensa­
tionally, heat as (a part of) poetry. One more thing is
worth noting, that only in Japan can we find hundreds
lii Haiku, The Poetry of Sensation
of “poems” written on the subject of heat. In English
literature there may be some light verse on this subject;
I don’t remember any. But, it will asked, what is the
meaning of the inverted commas of a few lines before,
hundreds of “poems”? If we say that there are various
kinds of poetry, and Basho’s is one, and Dante’s another
and so on, the problem is solved, but if we think, as I do,
that the poetry of Basho and Dante and Hakurakuten and
Homer are the same poetry, and that the music of Bach
and the paintings of Giotto and Klee and Rousseau are
the same poetry, then the word poetry must be written
“poetry,” since it is being used in an unusual sense. Of
the ninety six haiku on heat given above, not many are
poetry in the ordinary sense of the word, and far from
all are “poetry,” but in any case the point is that the
“poetry” of heat was perceived strongly and clearly by
a great number of Japanese poets, and only dimly if at
all by poets of other times and places.
 Chapter XXIV
POETS OF ISSA’S TIME

Fuhaku, 1714-1807, lived in Edo, and was a

teacher of the Tea Ceremony, besides haikai. He was
the pupil of Hakuho, £jl&, died 1734, himself a pupil of
Basho and then of Shiko. Fuhaku's verse are like those
of Oemaru, there is something affected about them. It
is difficult to quote him.

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Shizukasa ya liana ni saivaranu kane no koe
The stillness!
The voice of the temple bell
Does not stir the cherry blossoms.
Mucho, 1733-1809, was an Osaka writer of short
stories under the name of Ueda Akinari; he was the author
of Ugetsu Monogatari. He learned haikai from Kito, and
associated with Buson. One of his verses is interesting
psychologicaly, though its poetical merit is small:

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Kaminari ni otosanu hashi wo hototogisu
I did not drop my chopsticks
At the thunder and lighting,
But when the hototogisu sang....

The same is true of the following:

2 Poets of Issa's Time

ill & Wi V' 5 ti L ;f* <d M

Yama a ran a me no iro nashi aki no mizu
The rain that washes the mountain,
The water of autumn,
Has no colour.
Watsujin, 0A, 1758-1836, was a samurai of Sendai,
who learned haikai from Hakkyo, a pupil of Gyodai.
He had an unusually large number of pen-names, which
did not, unfortunately, make his verses any better. The
following is interesting because of the psychology:
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Noroku hike utna no senaka tva ham no tsuki
Lead the horse slowly!
The spring moon
Is shining on his back.
Other verses of his:

Yo no naka too ki no shita ni suru sakura katia

The cherry blossoms
Put the whole world
Under the trees.
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Tachiyoreba meigetsu motanu matsu mo nashi
Walking up to them,
Not a single pine tree
But has its bright autumn moon.
Shiro, ±$j, 1742-1813, was a doctor of Nagoya, a pupil
of Gyodai. He learned literature from the famous Motoori
Poets of Issa’s Time 3

Norinaga, and painting from Hanko, and became

famous as a haiku poet at about the same time as Gek-
kyo, at the turn of the century. Sometimes his verses
are rather vulgar; sometimes they have a stimulating
simplicity:

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Izuru hi no hoka ni mono nashi kiri no nmi
The misty sea,
The rising sun,
Nothing else.

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Akcbono ya arashi wa ynki ni uzumorete
Dawn,
The storm buried
In the snow.
Shiro’s best verse, perhaps, as simple as heat and size:

Oari no tatami wo arnku atsnsa kana

A huge ant
Walks over the tatami:
The heat!
The black colour of the ant also adds to the hot feeling.

kb kb if is.
To-tb to taki no ochikomu shigemi kana
Down thunders
The waterfall
Into the rank foliage.
4 Poets of Issa’s Time
The overflowing water falls into overflowing leaves,
which in their perpetual dampness seem as everlasting
as the waterfall; see Coleridge’s This Lime-tree Bower.

Ashigaru no katamatte yitktt samusa /tana

The samurai servants,
All walking close together
In the cold.
This is a picture of six or seven of the lower-grade
members of the warrior class, rather thinly clad, walking
along a wide road. They are, as the Japanese says, “con­
gealed,” “in a lump,” because they have the feeling that
they are warmer if near one another.
Seibi, J&H, 1748-1816, was a rich merchant of Edo who
learned to love haikai from his father. He studied Chinese
and Japanese literature, and associated with Issa, Otokuni,
and Michihiko. He retired from business in middle life
and devoted himself to haikai, especially helping poor
poets who came up to Edo from all parts of the country.
He was on very intimate terms with one of these, Issa.
His own verses have something innocent about them.

Shiro-botan kuzuren to shite futsuka miru

The white peony,
About to crumble,
Lasted two days more.

Ochiba shite hinata ni tateru enoki kana

Poets of Issa’s Time 5

Its leaves have fallen,

And the nettle-tree
Stands in the sun.

This, it might be said, is true of all deciduous trees,

but the point is that the nettle-tree looks particularly bare
in winter sunlight, because of the shape of its branches
and colour of its bark.

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Aomukeba kuchi ippai ni ham hi kana
Lying down on my back,
The spring sunshine
Filled my mouth.

This is indeed drinking in the sunshine, a sun-drink.

This verse reminds us that haiku is the poetry of sensa­
tion. Thoreau says in A Week on the Concord:
As we had drank in the fluvial prospect all day, so
now we took a draft of water with our evening meal.

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Uo hide kuchi namagusashi him no yuki
Having eaten fish.
My mouth feels unclean
At this snow in the bright day.

Here we have delicacy of perception, or rather, recogni­

tion of the perception. What is difficult is not so much
to know, as to know that we know.

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Oyadori no hiyoko asobasu aoi kana
6 Poets of Issa’s Time

The mother hen

Lets the chicks play
Among the hollyhocks.
Is this too beauti.’ul, too humanitarian, too charming for
haiku? Somehow the stupidity and fussiness of the hen
prevents the verse from being too sentimental.
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Haya aki no yanagi wo sukasn asahi liana
Already the morning sun
Passes easily through
The willow trees of autumn. -
It is early autumn, and the season is perceived in the
brightness of the sunshine seen through the willow trees,
which are thinner now, for the leaves are beginning to fall. .\

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Mikazuki no hikari wo chirasu nowaki kana
The winter blast
Scatters the light
Of the crescent moon.
The faint light is tossed to and fro by the “field-
dividing” wind of autumn. The light is swept away by
the force of the wind, so that we can hardly see the
moonlight.

Kage ni ite tsuki ni zashilti wo yuzuri lieri

Sitting in the shadow,
And letting the moonlight.
Have the room.
Poets of fssa’s Time 7
This reminds us of certain poems by Harold Monro.

2l n iff * n t & <o *

Samidare ya nishi to higashi no honganji
In the summer rain,
Nishihonganji,
Higashihonganji.
The Jodo sect is divided into two, the “Western” and
the “Eastern.” The rain is not.
Ginko, P$>I, who died in 1857, was a pupil of Seibi,
and a better poet than his master. He wrote a large
number of books, but very little seems to be known of
him. Some of his verses are very good indeed.

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Mizndori no inune ni hashi oku ukine kana
The water-bird
Puts its beak in its breast,
And sleeps.

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Fnmbarite hikcba ne asaki daiko kana
Straddling over it,
And pulling it out,—
The turnip had a small root.

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Jiguruma ni abtira wo mini ya knmo no mine
Oiling
The heavy wagon;
Billowing clouds.
8 Poets of Issa's Time

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Nodokeshi ya furiagtiru told cmo no oto
The quietness!
Raising my axe,
The sound of another.
Shumpa, 1750-1810, was a rich Kyoto merchant,
a disciple and patron of Kito, and intimate with Buson.
His only son studied haikai from his childhood, but died
young. His wife also loved haikai.

Mi X> t o ~X # ft % <D
Kane hitotsu oki na ie ni ham no here
The sound of a temple bell
In a great house;
An evening of spring.
Gekkei, 1752-1811, learned painting and haikai
from Buson, and after Buson’s death, studied painting
under the famous Maruyama Okyo, and established a new
style termed Shijo-fu. Gekkei published a book of haikai
together with Gyodai, Kito, and Seira, one of the chief
works of the Buson School. His wife Ume, $5#;, who
died a year before him, was also good at haikai. He was
buried by Buson’s grave.

Te ni kiyuru kangiku no ha no kori kana

Melting in the hand,
The ice on the leaves
Of the winter chrysanthemums.
Sobaku, 1758-1821, was at first a merchant, then
Poets of Issa’s Time 9
later became a priest. He was the pupil of Gyodai
He especially admired Sora, the disciple of Basho, and
was intimate with Shiro. His (figure) paintings are con­
sidered by some to be superior to those of Buson. His
verses are rather feeble, but more pleasing than many
famous ones.

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Toshi-doshi tii sakura sukunaki kokyo kana

My old village;
The cherry blossoms grow less
Every year.

Is not this subjective rather than objective?

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Naki-yameba gakuri to sabishi kaivazu dera

When they stop croaking,

The frog temple
Becomes suddenly lonely.

This is a very small temple with a big pond full of

big frogs.

Atsuki hi ya yuri no hasatnaru kusa no naka

A sultry day;
The lilies are hemmed in
Among the grasses.

Kado akete cha no kara nageru fnbuki kana

10 Pods of Issa's Time

Opening the door

To throw away the tea-leaves,—
A flurry of snow!
Teiga, 1744-1826, was a rich merchant who dis­
sipated his fortune away. After wasting his substance,
he lived by writing. He studied liaikai under Buson, and
was proficient in kyoka.

Kusa no to ya tatami no tie no alii no kaze

A poor hut;
The wind of autumn
Blows over the tatami.

Chosui, who died in 1813, or 1811, was the pupil

of Shirao, but in later years, together with Otsuni,
Sokyo, and Gomei, became one of the Four Great
Ones of Oshu. He quarrelled with Michihiko about the
succession to his teacher Shirao, and then travelled all
over the country, finally returning to the north, and living
the rest of his life in a hermitage teaching haikai.

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Uma no kao miyuru kinuta no akari kana
In the light of the candle
By the fulling block
Appears the face of the horse.
The house is a poor one, the stable is just another room
of it. Most of Chosui’s other verses seem to have no
point to them:
Poets of Issa’s Time 11
u m ic m ii ft z> v l o%m&&
llarusame ni mirctaru kcshi no ivakaba kana
In the spring rain,
The young leaves of the poppy
Are being wetted.
Michihiko, 1755-1818, was a doctor living in Sen­
dai; as a doctor he read his name in the Chinese way,
Dogen. He was a pupil of Shirao, but afterwards opposed
his master’s teachings and criticised almost all the preced­
ing haiku poets, saying, “There are no haiku w'hich are
absolutely good or absolutely bad.” This is true at least
of his own:

Tonam hi mo nakute icho no ochiba kana

No other near it,
The gingko-tree,
Its leaves scattering.
The beautiful yellow leaves are falling from the high
autumn sky, into which the bare branches tower up. Like
the peony among flowers, no other tree can approach the
gingko tree.

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Kare-ashi ya yukt no chiratsuku kaze no ato
When the wind stops,
The snow-flakes hover
Over the withered reeds.
Socho, Hyfc, who died in 1814, was a man of Edo. He
learned painting from Buncho, iScH, and was good at
12 Poets of /bfl'j Time
tmg#, hmm'* *Ay\c. He studied haikai under
Ssibikaw, at?y3 was eqpa! to Michitako and Seibi
in his time, but bis verses seem dull to us.
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Yozarashi no futa no hothitari ama-no-gawa
Drying an under-sash
During the evening:
The Milky Way.

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Shiba no to ni yoahc-garasu ya hatsu-shigure
To the brushwood gate
Dawn comes; a crow caws;
The first winter shower.
This has the haiku mannerism, all the background and
ingredients, but without the specific experience that makes
the poetic life really alive. The general exists only be­
cause of the particular, (and the particular only because
of the general).
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Yuki-akari akaruki neya tua mala samushi
Lighted by snow
The bedroom is bright,—
But still cold!
This verse is simple, and rather psychology than poetry,
yet the feeling /if the season that has not yet come gives
it a faintly painful, physical significance..
W (?/. 5 t m lit <j> a 1 it Tff
lime fliirii m noiolxi no pro no dotioioM
Ports of /$&>'$ Tim* 13
Plum'blossoms falling.
Evening, in Namlxt,
At the old furniture fait,
This is the sum total of human life. (Narnba is Naniwa,
that is, Osaka).
Sekifu, SH-fn, who died at the age of ninety one in 1843,
learned haiku from Shirao, and became one of his Eight
Chief Disciples. Few of his verses arc good, but the
following is an experience I have often had among the
foot-hills of Japan:

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Uoso-michi ya todomaru tokoro negi-batake
A narrow path;
Where it ends,
A field of leeks.
Seifu-jo, 1731-1814, was a woman born in
Musashi Province. She learned haikai first from Chosui,
then from Shirao. Her verses are affected and subjective:

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Jlito incte naka ni mono nashi tsuki to ware
Everybody else gone to sleep,
There is nothing between
Myself and the moon.
Koyu-ni, dates uncertain, was a woman of Edo,
v/ho learned haikai from Songi the First, died 1782.

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Arne mo mala hartt no negai no hitotsu kana
14 Poets of Issa’s Time

Rain
Is also one of the tilings 1 want
In spring.

Early spring is frequently dry in Tokyo, rain often not

falling during February and March.

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Hana chirite shtzuka ni narinu hito-gokoro
The cherry blossoms falling,
The minds of men
Are calm again.

To Koyu, as to Christina Rossetti and Katherine Mans­

field, beauty was almost more of a pain than a pleasure.
Sogetsu-ni, who died in 1804, was the wife of
Tsunemaru, fa;&, a pupil of Shirao; he died five years
after her.

Yultashisa yd ochiba kaburishi hotoke-tachi

Mysterious loveliness!
Buddhist statues
Covered in fallen leaves.

Kikusha-ni, 1752-1826, was a pupil of Sankyd,

Zeshubo, Jkiftfj, died 1793. Her verses are better
than those of most poetesses, but still subjective and
somewhat self-advertising:

Tsnki to ware bakari nokorinn hashi-suztimt

Poets of Issa’s Time 15
The moon and I
Alone remained,
Cooling on the bridge.

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liana momiji yori mo aota no soyogi kana
More than the crimson leaves,
The waving
Of the green rice-fields!
Tayo-jo, 1772-1865, was the wife of a certain
Muranaga, fiji, and learned haikai at first from Michihiko,
then from Otsuni. She went to Edo in 1823.

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Ym&m kuru mo mina harukazc no tsutsumi kana
People coming, people going,
It is all the spring wind
Along the embankment.
On this spring day travellers are passing to and fro on
the high embankment, all equal in the spring breeze. A
verse which sounds like her death-poem; she died at the
age of ninety three:

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Ikisugite ware mo samui zo fuyu no fuze
Living too long,
I too am cold,
O winter fly!

Sorezore ni na mo arige nari moyuru ku$a,

16 Poets of Issa's Time

Each must have its name,

The green-burning
Grasses.

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Chinchoge yoru mo kakurenti nioi kana
The chinchoge
Cannot be hid, even at night,—
The fragrance!
The chinchoge is a flowering bush with an extremely
strong, sweet smell.

Zeti-doki wo oboete kuru ya suzume no ko

Here come the young sparrows!
They seem to have learned
When meal-time is.

u s ^ % -f ^ ^ *ife t- * <d m
Kakururumo subayaki kiji ya kusa no kaze
A pheasant
Has rushed into cover?
Wind in the grasses.

We come now to the lowest point in the history of

haiku, the period between Issa and Shiki. Shiki was born
in 1856, and Issa died in 1827, so that this time is about
the fifty years between 1827 and 1877. The poets of this
period, Baishitsu, Sokyu, Horo, Rangai and the rest of
them, are known as tsukinami poets, because they usually
met each month and composed verses irrespective of in-
Poets of Issa's Time 17
spiration, mechanically and imitatively. To illustrate their
quality we should choose their worst haiku, or at least
their average ones, but as in the case of good poets the
best verses have been selected, so in the case of their
poor relations, we must dress them up in their best clothes,
and choose their most life-like haiku.
Baishitsu, 1768-1852, was born in Kanazawa of a
family of sword experts. He began to study haikai at
the age of thirty seven from Barai, the pupil of Kiin,
then went to Kyoto and learned from Ranko, went to Edo
for twelve years, and returned to Kyoto to become one
of The Three Great Men, together with Sokyu and Horo.

Kiri no ki ya ante no nagaruru semi no hara

Rain running down

A paulownia tree
Under the belly of a cicada.
This reminds us of Dr Johnson’s “Counting the stripes
of the tulip,” but the Tennysonian minuteness of the
observation is a poetical one.

Nc-gatte no yosa ni mala mini yanagi kana

I turned the way

I wanted to sleep,
And kept seeing the willow tree.
There is a strange and not explained or explainable
connection between the side he felt most comfortable on,
and the side which enabled him to see the willow tree in
the garden.
I

18 Poets of lssa's Time

Sokyu, ;gf44, 1760-1843, was also a samurai of Kana­
zawa, and also learned from Barai and Ranko. His verses
are usually self-concious, but one is good:
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Yuktt aki ya suzunic no arnku kusa no naka
Departing autumn,
Sparrows hopping
In the grasses.
Winter is approaching, and the sparrows are filling
their crops with the fallen seeds and berries.
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Waga tateru kemuri iva hito no aki no kure
The smoke I make
Is other people’s
Autumn evening.
This smoke may be that of burning fallen leaves, or
the fire he makes for his own evening meal, which as it
rises into the sky becomes a token of a (late) autumn
evening for others. It may also be the smoke which he
imagines arising from his own cremation. This latter
meaning is disagreeable.
P & fe & ^ b H X w CO ft
Shiba no to too sayii c akete Itana no ham
Flowery spring;
Opening left and right,
The brushwood gate.
This is not so much poetry as what Wordsworth calls
“natural piety,” by which the days are bound together.
Poets of Issa's Time 19
Everything is unique, spontaneous, intrinsic,—yet all things
are bound together by invisible but unbreakable bonds.
The Japanese have (had) the same sense of the religious­
ness, the cosmic meaning of daily life, as the ancient
Greeks. Passing over the threshold, rising in the morning,
going to rest in the evening, entering into manhood, all
had their own sacred ritual, their cheerful solemnity. The
present verse is of New Year’s Day. The poet opens the
garden gate, made of interwoven brushwood. It is the
same double gate; it opens right and left as usual. But
this morning, it has a symbolic meaning? No, not so.
The gate and his heart and mind are one thing; they open
to all the good and evil that will come to him during this
new year.
Iloro, who died in 18-15 at the age of eighty four,
learned haikai from Michihiko, then went to Edo, where
he died. He was a man of severe and upright character,
who never married. Occasionally his verses have some
human interest in them:

m <o * $ co m - d Vf z i; n »
Ham no mizu neko no tobikoshi ezari keri
The water of spring;
The cat fails
To jump over it.
As for the rest of the haiku poets between Issa and
Shiki, we may give a few examples of their “best” verses.
Rangai, jg.^, 1758-1831, a pupil of Ranko, and of Gyodai,
was also a painter.

Tombo no multi too soroeru nisliibi kana

20 Poets of lssa's Time

The dragon-flies,
All flying in the same direction,
In the rays of the setting sun.
His death verse:

ft ± <D ill & ft j&s Cl ft

Fuji no yama minagara shitaki tonshi kana

I would like to die suddenly,

While I am gazing
At Mount Fuji.
Shou, who died in 1829, was Shiro’s pupil:

+ ft
Tachi kagashi toshi iva nanaju ni-san kana

Setting up
A scarecrow
Seventy two or three years old.
Soky5, ^JEP, who died in 1852, was a man of Edo, a
pupil of Horo. I could not find a verse worth the paper.

'H. ‘
 Chapter XXV
SHIKI: THE CRITIC

Shiki, 1867-1902, is considered to be the restorer of

haiku, which had been falling off since the time of Buson.
Basho walked his Way of Haiku; Buson his Way of Art;
Issa, though he did not speak of it, his Way of Humanity.
What had Shiki? He had no Way of any kind unless
perhaps a Way of Beauty, like Keats, but ill-health and
beauty do not go well together, and by the end of his
short life he had got some humanity, but no religion, no
pantheism, or mysticism, or Zen. Thoreau says:
All our lives want a suitable background__ Character
always secures for itself this advantage, and is thus
distinct and unrelated to near or trivial objects, whether
things or persons.
At an early age Shiki studied calligraphy and Chinese
literature, and went up to Tokyo to enter the high school
at the age of seventeen. The next year he began to
compose haiku without a teacher, and two years after
visited an old man, a disciple of Baishitsu, to have his
verses corrected. In the 25th year of Meiji, 1892, he
entered the Nippon Newspaper Company, and established
a new school of haikai. He published several books, many
articles on haikai, and a periodical, Hototogisu. From his
youth he had suffered from consumption, and it was this
that carried him off at the early age of thirty six.
The effect of Shiki was to stimulate, but in over-praising
Buson and under-praising Basho he helped the continuous
22 SJiilei: The Critic
and never-ceasing tendency of haiku to become more
artificial, rootless, and trivial. During his short life Shiki
wrote as many as eighty short pieces on haiku and related
subjects. The next chapter consists of Shiki’s essay on
Furu-ike ya, in which he explains to an imaginary visitor
the historical position and value of this famous verse. It
was published in the 31st year of Meiji, 1898, and followed
by Haikai Mumonkan, an attempt to discuss haiku in
the form of the Mumonkan, with introduction, case, and
illustrative verse. It seems to me a dismal failure.
A long but interesting essay, The Poet Buson,
70 pages, published the year before, compares Buson and
Basho to the latter’s disadvantage, and discusses the vari­
ous kinds of beauty in haiku. He says that spring and
summer are positive seasons, autumn and winter negative,
and so Buson liked summer most; his summer verses are
the most numerous, and his spring and summer verses
the best. In this he is already different from the previous
haiku poets. Shiki compares Basho and Buson in their
treatment of the peony, the gayest of all flowers. Basho
has only a few verses on the peony, for example:

ft & < fc tf a * £ a * fc
Botan shibe fukaku wakederu hachi no nagori kana
The pistil of the peony is deep;
The bee is making its way out;
A leave-taking.

Another verse by Basho:

& & © * ft n (D ft (D SK
Samukaranu tsnyu ya botan no hana no mitsu
Shihi: The Critic 23
The dews are not cold;
The honey
Of the peony flower.
Basho used the peony to express the season in the
former; the latter is not well composed. Buson did not
use his strength in composing, but created good verses
naturally; there are more than twenty altogether. And
Shiki quotes:
15 Y5 iR ffi m * to I* tz h $
Ild-hyaku-ri amagumo yosenu hotan kana

The peonies do not allow

The rain-clouds a hundred leagues round
To approach them.
fill <D h * 6 t ® ft
Jigurtima no todoro to hibiku botan kana

The heavy wagon

Rumbles by;
The peony quivers.

Botan hitte ki no otoroeshi yube kana

Having cut the peony,

I felt exhausted,
That evening.

m 3E # # & 133 < tfc n ft

0/0377 shunion wo hiraku botan kana

The peony,
Opening the Crimson Gate of the Palace
Of the King of the Ants.
24 Shihi: The Critic

&m < * < HT 41: i'l- *

Kirnbyo no kakuyaku to shite hotan liana
On the golden screen,
A peony
Brightly shining.

4± ;t
iJotan c/«7/e tichi-kasanarinu nisan-ben
The peony has fallen;
A few scattered petals
Lie one on another.
Shiki says that Buson’s verses compete in beauty with
that of the peony. Green leaves are also a positive subject,
Shiki thinks. Basho however composed only a few, used
for the season, for example:

Wakaba shite on-me no shizuku nuguwaba ya

Shall I wipe away
The dews in his eyes?
The green leaves!1

h b tc & b 1? v $ <0 It
Ara toto aoba wakaba no hi no hikari
Ah, how glorious!
The young leaves, the green leaves,
Glittering in the sunshine!
Buson, however, has more than ten verses which speak
of the young leaves, all showing his good taste:
1 See Vol. I, page 118.
Shiki: The Critic 25

ft HI <0 & fc <D i> ft

Zctcho no shiro lanomoshiki wakaba kana

How reliable
The castle on the summit,
In the young leaves!

soffo #r fc a « ^ $ /p *
Mado no hi no kozue ni nokoru ivakaba kana

Remaining in the branches

In the light of the window,—
The young leaves.
& MX & & £ £ h < mm ^ ft
Kaya wo dete nara wo tachiyuku wakaba kana

Coming out from the mosquito-net

I passed out of Nara,—
The young leaves!

Fuji hitotsu uzumi nokoshite wakaba kana

Mount Fuji alone

Remains unburied
Beneath the young leaves.

ib m * x /b *&• ?§ r ■$> < # m ** ft

Yania soute kobune kogi-yuku ivakaba kana

A boat rows
Along the mountain,— H
The young leaves!

Ja too kitte wataru tanima no ivakaba kana

26 Shihi: The Critic

Young leaves of the valley

I passed through
After killing a snake!
£ % £ h \c fifd co fv m < m M ft
Ochi-kochi ni taki no oto kiku tvakaba hand
I listen to the sound of the waterfalls
Here and there
Among the young leaves!
Basho has strong verses on the summer rain:
35: n m * & x & u & ± hi
Samidare ivo atsumete hayashi mogami-gawa
Collecting all
The rains of May,
The swift Mogami River.
3i n m m ȣ t & t * * # jii
Samidare no kunio fnki-otosc di-gaiva
Ah! River Oi!
Blow, blow away
The clouds of May rain!
But those of Buson are not inferior to his:

Samidare no oi koshitaru kashikosa yo

Crossing the River Oi
Swollen with the summer rains,—
What a feat!
2i n ifs? * m & mi- m - m
Samidare ya taiga tvo mac ni ie niken
Shiki: The Critic 27

By a great stream
In the May rain,
Two houses.

m. jj Hi <o aa fc <o t u # mt'ti

Samidare no hori tanomoshiki toride liana
The fort;
How trustworthy its moat
In the summer rain!
Basho has no verses on the summer shower; Buson has
several:

Yudachi ya kusaba wo tsukamu mura-suzume

The shower!
Sparrows cling
To the grasses and leaves.
i

Yudachi ya fade mo kawakazu issengen

The shower!
A thousand words
Without drying my writing brush.
Basho has only one strong verse on the hototogisu:

Kb ± i- g flt fc * * yko ±
Hototogisu hoc yokotau ya tnizu no ue
i •< A thousand verses written by myself at Sorinji Temple.”

i
I I

28 Shiki: The Critic

The cry of a hototogisu
Goes slanting—ah!
Across the water.
Buson has some brilliant and extreme verses:

Hototogisu hitsugi too tsukamu kumo-ma yori

A hototogisu,
Snatching at the coffin
From between the clouds.

13. t ± €-t m&iz

Hototogisu heianjo ivo sujikai ni
Ah! the hototogisu
Has flown athwart
Heian castle!

b. € 1"
Saya-bashiru tomokirimaru ya hototogisu
Tomokiri-maru1
Drawn out of its scabbard,—
A hototogisu cries!
The haiku of Basho express objective beauty, Shiki
says, like waka of olden times, but Buson is far more
objective. The verses of Buson are immediately pictures.
Bashd has only forty or fifty verses which are objective,
1 This was a famous sword of Genji Shigeyori. It was called
originally Lion Cub, but it was one of a pair with
another sword, Small Crow, which was two inches longer,
and was cut shorter. The Lion Cub was then renamed Friend-
Cutter, (Tomokiri).
Shihi: The Critic 29
about twenty of which can become pictures, for example
the following:
■m * 105 u 6 <r> fill
Uguisu ya yanagi no ushiro yabu no mcie

The uguisu,
Behind the willow,
Before the grove.
m & ft fc <0 o t BO w 5 Oi ft 3^ fe
Umc ga ka ni notto hi no deni yatnaji kana

Suddenly the sun rose,

To the scent of the plum-blossoms
Along the mountain path.
## O& t? % ft
Furu-dera no momo ni kome fumu otoko kana

By the old temple,

Peach-blossoms; I
A man treading rice.
The following are by Buson.
B it Mo te fr
Hi iva naname sekiya no yari ni tombo kana

Dragon-flies
On the spears of the barrier,
In the slanting rays of the sun.

m» d f*r *
Yanagi chiri shimizti kare ishi tokoro-dokoro

Willow leaves fallen,

The clear water dried up,
Stones here and there.
30 Shiki: The Critic

9 *5 to * S f? co ± k m Hi
Kariganc ya hodatc no tie too shio-gunma
The wild geese,—
The salt-wagon passes
Over the ears of the smartweeds.

If X co /Jn $1 & Tf o A
.yotfo «o kobashi too yuki no Into
Saucepan in hand,
A man, snow-clad, passes over
The small bridge of Yodo.

x b x b t ft ic p co m *> w &
Tcra-tera to ishi ni hi no tcru kareno kana
Brightly the sun shines
Over the stones:
The withered moor!

tf £ ^ X* <o /h M> vfc J|p 5 3? ^ ft

Musasabi no kotori hami-iru kareno kana
The flying-squirrel
Is crunching the small bird
On the withered moor.

7k & * fc £ tit -k h 9
Mizudori ya fune ni na tvo arau onna ari
The water-birds;
A woman in a boat,
Washing young greens.
In his picturesqueness Buson is more objective than
Basho. Basho made a large number of verses about human
Shiki: The Critic 31
affairs, but most of them concern his own life; Buson’s
many verses arc expressive of human life in general, for
example:

ff < 3fl5 m ft Mo ±
Yuku haru ya sctija wo urarr.u uta no nushi
The composer of uta
Feels reproachful to the selector:
Spring departing.

f-f m lillftfc ft
Aoume ni mayu atsumctaru bijin kana
A beauty
Draws her eyebrows together
At the green plum.

Mi ni shitnu ya naki tsuma no kushi wo neya ni f. mu

In the bedroom,
I trod on the comb of my dead wife,—
And felt it to the marrow!
It is difficult for haiku to express time, but here are
two exceptions by Buson:

Oteuchi no fiifu narishi wo koromogae

They were a couple !
To have been executed by their lord:
The change of clothes.
Illicit intercourse was banned, but they were saved by
the mercy of the lord, and had now become man and wife,
32 Shiki: The Critic
and changed their clothes to summer ones, living peace­
fully and happily.
h ft f % ft o ti td b X H BP it
Uchihatasu boro tsuredachite natsutto ltana
With the priest-enemy
He is to kill,
Across the summer moor.

They are to have a duel. To avenge his father, the

young warrier looked for his enemy, and at last came
across the object of his vengeance. They are walking
together to fight on the moor. The enemy has already
renounced the world, and does not run away, but is walking
with the young man to be killed by him, This haiku
expresses the future—dramatic events about to happen.1
After deciding his standpoint in Furu-ike ya, Basho
made haiku realistically all the time. It was not that he
sought a verse from all the things he saw, but that he
rejected purely objective things which had no connection
with himself; he only sang of things concerning himself,
putting himself in the centre. This attitude, Shiki thinks,
is rather vulgar.
It is not that BashS did not understand ideal beauty at
all, emotionally, but he thought about the matter, and
decided that the ideal is not beauty. Always in difficult
circumstances, without being known in the world, he lived
a pure life controlled by his firm will. He was against
all pretence, even in literature, and as his favourite poet
Toho made poem-sketches, he must have thought haiku
should do the same.
‘See page 252 of Vol. I.
Shiki: The Critic 33

Basho had many disciples, but there is no realistic poet

like him, and Shiki says that we do not read that Basho
spoke ill of their verses for not being realistic. In renga,
Basho embraced the whole universe, and played fearlessly
with the old and the new, but in haiku he was very timid.
Buson’s idealism is seen in his haiku, but the following
also shows his state of mind. It is what he taught Shoha -
about his feeling, quite imaginative and fantastic, in the
Chinese style:
. . . visiting Kikaku, calling on Ransetsu, following
Sodo; accompanying Onitsura. Meeting these four old
men, a little apart from the city of fame, enjoying
ourselves in the garden, or in the woods, having a
party on a hill or by a lake, drinking, talking, laughing,
valuing the unexpected. Living always like this I met
the four old men again one day. A pleasant feeling as
before, shutting my eyes to squeeze a verse out, opening
the eyes when I get one; immediately the existence of
the four old men disappears—I wonder where have they
gone, like fairies! In an ecstasy I stand there alone,
and the scent of flowers is in harmony with the breeze;
the moonlight floats on the water. This is the state
of my haiku.
At a time of simple thinking, people prefer simple art.
When we see how uncomplicated our waka is, we can see,
Shiki says, that our thought also did not advance for a long
time. Haiku, the poetry of a simple form, tried to express
complicated thoughts, and used Chinese words, or directly
translated forms, but this was only a temporary pheno­
menon, and at last Furuike-ya was worshipped as the
essence of haiku. The verse Furu-ike ya is the simplest
of all haiku; Basho felt it to be his best so far, and never
34 Slu/ci: The Critic

made any complicated verse after it. Mis disciples also

avoided extreme complicatedness, though they did not
learn the simplicity of Basho. Basho said, “As for hokku,
the highest and greatest comes by just letting it out
naturally,” and he taught his disciple Shado, “Real hokku
is not like yours, which is a collection of various things;
it should be beaten gold.” The verses of Shado called
by Basho “a collection of various things” must be the
following:

m hi < * m n <v ffi m an

Hato naku ya sliibugaki-hara no soba-batake
A dove coos
In the buckwheat field
On the astringent-persimmon moor.

*|J -\b 7k HI o _t <o & <D m

Kari-kabu ya mizuta no ue no alii no liumo
Stubble;
Autumn clouds
Over the water of the rice-field.
These verses, unique in the Genroku Era, Shiki judges
not below those of Basho in value. However, Basho did not
praise their particular character but tried to reject them.
It seems that he could not appreciate their complicated
beauty.
Basho used to teach, not the fixed truth, but truth
according to the time, according to the man. It may be
that he did not reject these good verses, but warned
against their danger, because when Kyoroku said,
9» “Hokku is the blending of things,” Basho
Shiki: The Critic 35
answered, ‘‘Doesn’t everybody know such an easy thing?”
He does not seem to reject the combination of things.
But here Basho means the combination of two things, not
three things as with Shado- This can be seen from their
verses. Basho said to Boncho, “Haiku is also a kind of
waka; you should make a verse with refinement.” Boncho’s
verses are not complicated, but like Shado’s are full of
material, so different from those of Basho, who fills up
the number of syllables with meaningless words,—a char­
acteristic of waka. Basho decided that haiku should be
simple, and narrowed the region of beauty. In this he
was followed by his disciples. Shiki says that Basho has
few verses which show an apprehension of delicate and
minute beauty, but Buson has very many.
The essay Buson and Kilo brings out, by comparing
pairs of verses, the relation between master and disciple.
Shiki begins by saying that Basho transmitted his way of
writing haiku to Kyorai, but Kyorai to no one. In the
same way Buson handed down his technique to Kito, but
Kito to no one. Kito lived only six years after his master,
and this is one of the reasons why Buson’s idea of haiku !
died out so quickly. Confucius had ten great disciples,
but no second Confucius appeared.
Kito had rather more learning than the average haiku
poet, but his talent was suited, unlike that of Buson, to
small things. However, his carefulness in making his
haiku prevented him from falling into triviality or vul­
garity, and Shiki says that he himself has learned much
from him.
I
Comparing Buson and Kit5, Shiki says that both are
bold in conception and achieve beauty. Both are original
and fresh in their use of words. However, Buson’s scale
36 Shihi: The Critic
is far greater. He has many verses achieved at a stroke,
whereas Kito’s verses are mostly contrived. Buson’s ma­
terials are rich; Kito makes ordinary things interesting.
Buson has genius, Kito has talent, and takes the greater
pains in writing his verses. Buson sometimes gives us
the purest and highest poetic pleasure; Kito is not capable
of this. In this sense Buson is the master, Kito the pupil,
but in any case their imitation of each other is invisible.
Of the twenty four pairs of verses which Shiki gives,
nineteen are translated here, the first by Buson, the second
byJKito, together with Shiki’s comment, if any.
m
Ori-kugi tii eboshi kaketari haru no yado

The eboshi1
Is hung on the bent nail
In the spring hermitage. Buson

JL m
Shogatsu ya eboshi kaketaru moku no katni

It is New Year’s Day;

The eboshi of the carpenter
Is hung up there. Kito

m ft
Nagaki fo ya tsuya no renga no kobore-zuki

The long night;

The renga of the wake
Has an overflowed2 moon. Buson

1 Eboshi, written with the first character meaning crow, from

its shape, was a kind of headgear for court nobles, and then
later for artizans and teachers.
Shiki: The Critic 37

# <o & * m r m btc. z> x fan JL tit

llaru no yo ya renga michitaru kujodono

A spring evening;
The nobleman’s mansion
Is overflowing with renga. Kitd

Shiki says of these that they show Buson’s naturalness

and Kito’s painstakingness, in spite of the fact that Buson’s
verses are more complex.

T- ffi L X U Ik A * # tti ts m n
Teshoku shite niwa fumu Into ya ham oshimu

With a lantern,
A man pacing the garden,
Grieving for the passing of spring. Buson

Jl 2£
Andon ivo tobosazu ham wo oshimi kcri

Not lighting the lamp,

And regretting
The passing spring. Kito

m & i£<o feti IE & V ft <o SS m ft

Tampopo no wasure-bana ari tnichi no shimo

There is a dandelion,
Blooming late
In the dew of the path. Buson

III Pjjogn 7E < ffi 7k it ji m

Yamabuki no wasure-bana sakic shimizu kana

2 This means that the verse about the moon is in a place later
than usual.
III I

38 Shiki: The Critic

The yellow rose
Is blooming late
By the clear water. Kito

m &&<o ts. m ft
liaji no ha wo roeishu no shiori kuna

A maple leaf
Used as a book-mark
Of the Roeishu. Buson

St©iBfc£0gie*o<o<L JL ffi
Miclii no hi ni kari no shiori ya tsukutsukushi

The travel diary;

All kinds of book-marks
For the time being. Kito

m ft
Asa-kawa no nishi-shi higashi-su wahaba kana

The shallow river

Turns west, turns east:
The young leaves! Buson

Jl ft
Momiji fukashi minami-shi nishi-stt mizu no kuma

The deeply-tinted autumn leaves,

Where the river turns
From south to west. Kit5

m ft 1$ h T- ft [z 51 o T in n m ft
Iclio fundc shizuka ni chigo no gezan kana
Shiki: The Critic 39
Treading the gingko tree,
The boy comes quietly
Down the mountain. Buson

W C <D <D T lU <D b & Ji tit

Oshinobi no gczan ya hagi no karagoromo

The recluse-courtier
Comes down from the mountain,
With bush-clover patterned garments. Kito

The expression “treading the ([fallen leaves of the]

gingko tree,” gives activity and energy to the whole verse.

u $ * a * fc m ft
Koshinuke no tsuma utsukushiki kotalsu kana

The weak-kneed wife,—

How beautiful she is
In the kotatsu!1 Buson

$M^ p5 o < b# Jl lit

Asagao ya ritiki senu tsuma utsukushiki

The morning-glory ;2
The wife who is not jealous,—
How beautiful she is! Kito

The same phrase is used, “a beautiful wife,” and neither

verse spoils the device. I

& m <d m & tc tc d r* w <o r m #

Hatsu-yuki no soko wo tatakcba take no tsuki
i
1 A kind of foot-warmer, covered with a quilt.
2 Which blooms in the early morning.
 40 Shilti: The Critic
The first snow; Buson
Sounding it out,
The moon over the bamboos.
mtc ± ® <D m j: u si m ;l at
Soko-tataku ham no snmi yori osozakura

Looking everywhere,
nil' I In a corner of spring,
Late cherry blossoms. Kitd

m
Momiji-mi ya ydi kashikoki kasa nxhon

For viewing the maple leaves, Buson

I Two1 umbrellas prepared,—

How clever!
: i :
L £ < * ft % K 515 tc 9 a tt m ;l at
\ ; Kashikoku mo hanami ni kitari yoku iva ame

1 Clever indeed!
! Coming for flower-viewing,—
Rain tomorrow. Kitd

9 t fg t $£ m
Iza yukirni hatachi znkuri su mino to kasa

Now then, let’s go snow-viewing

In the right form,
Kasa and mino.2 Buson

ffi 0 ffi 0 tc h o* < d -f- #] n# m Jl

i/w<? ?;o /?» no katachi znkuri su hatsushigure
1 For a man and a woman.
2 Umbrella-like hat and straw-coat.
Shiki: The Critic 41
Fashioning the shape
Of the plum tree,
The first winter rain. Kito

m ft
Kare-ii ni karaki namida ya togarasht

Dry-rice;
Bitter tears
At the red pepper. Buson

t* fc b X % < & M a* ft JL ffi

Kake ni shite togarasht ku namida kana

Eating the buck-wheat noodles

With red pepper,
And tears. Kito

The power of adaptation is striking in these verses.

m tt
Mijika yo ya kemushi no ue ni tsuyu no tama

The short night;

Pearls of dew
On the hairy caterpillar. Buson

JL
Mijika yo ya kani no kara ni asa no kazc

The short night,

The morning wind
Blowing on the crab-shell. Kito

Both have fallen into over-minute workmanship and

vulgarity. Some however may smile at them.1
‘This criticism shows Shiki’s bad taste, which comes in part
from his lack of humour, and in part from his lack of animism.
42 Shiki: The Critic
m it
Ono irctc ka ni odoroku ya fuyukodachi

Striking with the axe,

How surprised I was at the smell,
In the winter grove! Buson

& tc* ft, <D 4$ tz JL 1&

Kayarigi ni tama-tama jin no nioi kana

The mosquito-smudge wood;

Often the smell
Of the sap. Kito

Kito’s verse is a model of what haiku should be, but

Buson’s is beyond imitation.
m It
Mugiaki ya yugyd no liitsugi tori kcri

Barley autumn; 1
A pilgrim’s coffin
Passes along. Buson

Jl
Mugiaki ya hokori no naka wo tadanori dono

Barley autumn;
Through the dust,
Lord Tadanori. Kito

These are very similar scenes, but the verses are quite
ifferent from each other.
fk 33 it ^ 3£ * m V' * m it
Toba dono e go-rokki isogtt nowaki kana
Summer, when the barley is reaped, and everyone is terribly
Shiki: The Critic 43

On their way to Lord Toba,

Five or six knights
Ride through the autumn tempest. Buson

Mf mm ft **¥ © ® Ji ft
Toba dorio e miuta-zukai ya yowa no yuki
The poem-messenger
Goes through the snow at midnight
To Lord Toba. Kit5

Both verses are wonderful. Buson’s verse is as usual

more active, that of Kito more passive. A passive verse
requires skill. An active verse does not.

o t■} X ^ X V' {r tc £ & m ft

Sushi tsukete yagate initaru uoya kana
Making sushi, i
After a while, the fishmonger
Was not there. Buson

ft M <T> V' ft T' h V & ^ M Jl ft

Tatamiya no inade zo aritiu yu-shigure
The tatami-maker
In the winter evening rain,—
Still there? Kits

This also is the contrast between activity and in­

wardness.

m ft '
Negi kote kareki no naka too kaeri keri

1 Rice and fish-meat

 Chapter XXVI
SHIKI ON FURU-IKE YA

I had a visitor. He talked about haikai, and said to me,

“Furu-ike ya kawazu tobikomu titizti no oto

The old pond;
A frog jumps in,—
The sound of the water.
This verse is called a masterpiece, known even by uned­
ucated people such as pack-horse men and servantmen,
yet no one can explain the meaning.” As he wanted
me to explain it, I answered, “The meaning of this verse
is just what is said; it has no other, no special meaning.
But common-place haikai teachers speak as though this
had an esoteric meaning, so deep that no ordinary man
can understand it. This is deceiving people, making their
main object of faith a secret; also, they say this because
they do not know its historical position. This verse became
popular because Basho made it the first of his new style,
the verse dividing the old from the new, so later people
all spoke of it. With the passing of time, this verse was
mistakenly thought to be the best haiku of Basho; its real
meaning was forgotten. All kinds of odd meanings were
given to it, and, as a result, it deceived ordinary people.
So, if you went to know the real value of this verse, you
must know the history of haikai; it only means that he
heard the sound of a frog jumping into an old pond—
Furu-ike ya 47

nothing should be added to that. If you add anything to

it, it is not the real nature of the verse. Clearly and
simply, not hiding, not covering; no thinking, no technique
of words,—this is the characteristic of the verse. Nothing
else.”
The visitor nodded a little, but seemed not quite to
understand. So I said again, “I will tell you now the
historical position of Furu-ike ya. Forget all the haiku
you know. Just listen to me with an empty mind and
quiet feeling. Forget even the verses of other haiku,
whether of Basho, Buson, or old haiku or new ones, of
others or your own,—forget them all. You look at the
verse of Furu-ike with the mind of nowadays, when haiku
has made so much improvement; this is the cause of the
mistake. Listen to me, putting yourself into olden times,
when haiku had not yet progressed, and you will certainly
lose your doubts.” The visitor mumbled, “Yes, yes!”
I said, “I do not wish to tell you the history of haiku
now, but you cannot understand unless I do, so I am
going to tell you the history of old haikai, as much as is
necessary for you understand the verse of Furu-ike ya.
The uninterestingness of the history of old haikai may
make you yawn, and feel as if you are eating straw, but
this is just what is necessary for you to understand Furu-
ike ya; listen without interrupting.
I must tell you first the history of renga, and then I
must tell you the history of haikai. Renga was usually
made by putting 17 syllables and 14 syllables alternately,
and finishing after a hundred verses; and there are also
rules about the moon and flowers, teiza,1 uchikoshi,
1 Where the first reference to the moon or cherry-blossoms
should be made.
48 Fum-ike ya
'■ITM, sarikirai,1 The renga poets of the times did
their best, but I will not speak of this as it has no
connection with what I want to say from now. It will
be enough to speak of the hokku, the first verse of renga.
The hokku of renga and that of haikai are about the
same; there was no reason for any difference. Only, in the
course of its development, renga came from waka, and it
was bound by the words and materials of waka, and
could not widen its sphere, and enrich itself with other
materials. So naturally and unavoidably the hokku of renga
were commonplace and platitudinous. They imitated the
old poets, old verses, rearranging the same kinds of ideas
and words, feeling no shame in stealing from other verses.
The worst are those who repeated the same ideas and
used the same words in their own verses. Reading these
in later times, we cannot help doubting whether they
really felt the beauty of poetry. The Ashikaga Period,
when renga was most prosperous, was the time when waka
was at its weakest. The reason for its decay was that
chiefly it valued the old, relied on form, attached itself to
schools, was unable to produce any newness. After the
ShinkokinsJiu, the disputes of the schools became violent.
They argued about the form, not knowing the reality well;
flowers should be sung thus, the moon in this way; the
famous places for plovers are here and here, this word
should be used in that place only; bound by rules, there
was no place for waka to improve.
Thus the hokku of renga which was born from this
decayed waka was itself also decayed; and worse, it became
narrower as the form became smaller, and the degree of
decay became greater. In a way, the new-style poem,
1 Both meaning avoidance of certain disagreeable coincidences.
Furu-ike ya 49

hokku, produced something new compared to the diffuse

waka, but the number of good verses was small; on the
whole they were an assemblage of ordinary and hackneyed
words. For example: i

m SB. <> ft # & tf $ * 5 % M

Arne haze mo liana no ham tvo-ba sasoi keri
Wind and rain too
Are calling for
The cherry blossoms of spring. Sosetsu

$ <d & fr V' < a* i> h b c re <o M frs &

Ilaru nomi ha ikuka mo araji liana no ame
Spring, only
How few days more,—
Rain on the cherry blossoms. Soyo

tfs t V' (i tb tf 9 ik £
liana sake to iwanu bakari zo ame no hoc
Bloom, 0 cherry blossoms,
Says unceasingly
The voice of the rain. (Unknown)

M E
liana sake to isamuru ya kikn ame no koe
Listening to the voice of the rain,
“Bloom, 0 cherry blossoms!”
It urges. Shoha

m k. re & £
i4wc ni mata liana too yadosan kage mo naslii
1 Shiki gives 25 examples, of which 6 are here translated, not
the worst.
II

50 Furu-ike ya

Rain still;
I would shelter the cherry blossoms,
But there is no shade for them. (Unknown)

£n ^^ax ie j; m v ik'# & m

Sareba koso araslii yo liana yo ante no told
Ij
As I expected,
Storm, and rain,—
At the time of cherry blossoms! Shinkei
These verses are all about rain and the cherry blossoms.
They have almost the same flavour, and their triviality
may be seen immediately, at a glance. The 3rd and the
4th, “Bloom, 0 blossoms,” are not different from each
other. The last, by Shinkei, reminds us of the saying that
a village without birds has bats. I am afraid that these
examples of cherry blossom verses are not enough, so I
I
will give examples of moon poems to see if there is any
difference here.1

io t !) M £ & tt & 4 fc ik &

Ame hitori tsuki ivo omowanu koyoi kana
The rain alone
Is not thinking of the moon,
This evening! (Unknown)

fc m i]&
Kttmo kiri mo tsuki ni kakururu koyoi kana
Cloud and dew too
Are hidden,
This evening’s moon. Kensai
Seven verses translated from Shiki’s thirty seven.
Furu ike ya 51

)] 4 ft m tf P t£ k: % liL 9% ]*.
7sm/« koyoi chiri bakari dani kiimo mo nashi

The autumn moon,

Not a speck of cloud
To be seen this evening! Socho

i> X M from <o & ft w m

Kusa mo hi mo tsuki tnalsu tsuyu no yiibe kana

Dewy grasses and trees too

Wait for the moon
This evening! Sogi

)] fi m * <r> PJ] t l 5 t ^ ft K &

Tsuki wa nao ko-no-ma ni shiruki koyoi kana

The moon, !
Still wonderful between the trees,
This evening. Soboku

M 5 — & ^ & <V * V> ^ ft & %

Tsuki nokoru liito-yo no matsu no ko-no-ma kana

The moon remains

All night
Among the pine trees. (Unknown)

7K IS
Na zo takaki tsuki ya katsura wo oritsuran

The famous moon!

I will break off a branch
Of the katsura tree.1 Sogi

The monotony of the hokku of renga can be guessed

1 Which was supposed by the Chinese to grow on the moon.
 52 Furu-ike ya

from these examples. The last three verses are puns on

ogurayama, Mount Ogura, and oguraki, rather dark, and
the similarity is remarkable. The verses quoted so far
have a little variety, it is true, arising from the associating
of the moon with other physical objects, but the following
are all the same, indistinguishable from one another. This
is the characteristic of the hokku of renga.1
;i

Tsuki mo kyd nezaru yo ivo matsn hikari kana

The moon too cannot sleep,
Awaiting, today,
The brilliance! Soboku

% ft <o M ft E
Oshimu na yo koyoi akete mo aki no tsuki
Do not regret
That tonight changes into day;
There is still the moon of autumn! Sh5ha
How poverty-stricken poetically each poet and each
verse was is clear now. Not a hundredth of the examples
possible have been given, but the monotony of them all
can be easily understood. If I showed the enormous
quantity of books of renga hokku in which such hokku
as these are buried, no one could help being astonished
at such a monument of foolishness.
The renga poets were at their best chiefly on haze,
snow, the moon, the cherry-blossoms, autumnal leaves,
the hototogisu,—all common subjects; other subjects were
very few. We are now going to talk about frogs, but we
*Two are given from Shiki’s twenty six.
Flint-ike ya 53
find only one verse during those two hundred years.
n K. RC) < ii; fr ft & E
Uguisu no moro-goe ni naku kcwazu liana
The frog
Croaks
To the voice of uguisu. Shoha
Even this one does not speak really of the frog; it is
only a parody of the Introduction to the Kokinshu. See
how childish their idea was! The monotony of renga
was like this, and however foolish the literary men of
Ashikaga times might be, there must have been some who
felt dissatisfied with it. The most prosperous time of renga,
Bummei, 1469-86, and Meio, 1492-1500, had passed; though
its strength had not yet lessened, the change was going to
come. Sokan and Moritake both appeared in the time of
Eisho, 1504-20, and Temmon, 1532-54; discontented with
renga they opened a new path with haikai.
We do not know what Sokan thought about renga, but
he alone engaged in haikai when renga was prosperous, so
he must have felt that the newness of haikai was better
than the oldness of renga, and the following waka, which
is said to be by him, shows he was not just an ordinary
literary man:

You are noisy,

O hototogisu;
Depart from this hamlet!
Fools in the capital
Must be waiting for you.
54 Furu-ikc ya
Calling “fools of the capital” the waka and renga poets
who decided that flowers should always be portrayed hap­
pily, hototogisu as something desirable to hear, not being
able to understand the taste of nature,—certainly he must
have felt irritated with the changeless and monotonous
renga.
Moritake tried to make a thousand verses, and wondered
whether he should compose renga, or haikai. There was
a precedent in renga for making a thousand, so he felt
this to be easy, but not interesting. As for haikai, he
hesitated, as he would be the first. He could not decide
by himself and drew the sacred lot. As it said, “Do it
as haikai,” he made a thousand verses as haikai.
Before this renga poets made the hokku of haikai like
this by Dokyo,1 when crossing the river Mariko for the
second time, t X:

Mariko-gaioa mata ivataru se ya kaeri ashi

Mariko River;
Again I cross over the rapids,
On the way back.
This verse was made casually, and even verses like
this are few in number. Sokan made hokku using haikai,
and also used haikai for renku,2 and collected them and
made a book, Inulsukuba, but he did not make 50
or 100 verses continually. Moritake began this. Renga
had now finished its work. Let us think about the hokku
of haikai.
The haikai begun by Sokan and Moritake did not have
im
2 Very long renga.
Furu ike ya 55
a new form different from renga; only they used colloquial
words or Chinese words in the same old form, and added
humour, which had not been used in poetry up to then.
Haiku added newness and breadth to the old renga, and
infused comical ideas into the serious renga. But haikai
could not add any tastefulness to the dry renga, could not
teach realism to the formal renga. They attained only
one side of the comic, the lowest, and began a form of
literature inferior to renga in nobility of the verse and
taste. They were too ignorant to be called literary men,
too vulgar to be called poets. But they have some value
in their arousing renga, and giving it the chance to renew
itself, so even their uncouth verses are worth reading over
once. The humour of their haikai may be divided roughly
into three classes: 1. the humour of personification and
the use of simile and metaphor; 2. playing on words; 3.
the use of old words, old stories, old proverbs. Examples
of personification:1

f SroV'tHf £ &
Te wo tsuite uta moshi-aguru kaivazu kana
Putting his hands together,
The frog
Utters his ode. Sokan

It <D # & X £ 3 fc m &

Hana no ka wo nusumite hashiru arashi kana
Stealing
The scent of the cherry blossoms,
Off goes the storm. Sokan

1 Three out of seven.

56 Fum-ike ya

W m co Jti ^<H <9 rt' /x '•r A

i4o>Y7£7 wo w/oyw AroArw Ar/s/ii wo ////«/ Aw wo

The green willow

Paints eyebrows
On the brow of the hill. Mori take

Examples of metaphor; i

n km & £ t tc h « m § m^& & ^

TsmAw «z c zoo sashitaraba yoki uchiwa kana

Putting a handle
On the moon,—
What a fine fan! Sokan

Tfc
ivoc nakuba sagi koso yuki no hito-lsukune

If it had no voice,
The white heron in the snow
Would be just a mound. Sokan

& ft n h JUvtf -tfj m ts. Tp v£

Rakka eda ni kacru to mircba kocho kana

Fallen petals
Seemed to return to the branch,—
A butterfly! Moritake

Playing with words;2

ft i D & fc tb V tt Z> 4Q X> is. 3s ft

liana yori mo hana ni arikcru nioi kana

1 Three out of four.

2 One of five.
Furn-ike ya 57

The smell
Is in the nose
Rather than the rose. i Mori take
Using set phrases:2

V ft i’51 -7- t m V' ft o ^ U ^ £

liana yori tva dango to dare ka iwa-tsutsuji
Who said that dumplings
Were better than cherry blossoms?
Look at these azaleas!3 Sokan

The shallowness and poverty of these verses is ap­

parent, and needs no explanation. Teitoku just tried to
follow Sokan and Moritake, and thus indirectly praised
their faithfulness to haikai.
The Teitoku group published some works such as the
lnukoshu, ^-7'^S, Takatsukuba, (edited by Saimu,
Hitt, 1638,) Kebukigusa, (edited by Shigeyori, jfr$t
in 1645). They are a mass of bad verses, tens of thou­
sands of them, no limit, quite nauseating, but if we do
not insist on this, in the end we can’t understand the great
virtue of Basho, and, though it is troublesome, we must
exemplify this vast array of poor haiku, so please suppress
your yawns and listen. The varieties of humour were
explained before. The following4 are examples of per­
sonification:

J3 lO& & M
TsuU no kao fumn tva ryogai zo knmo no ashi
1 Hana means nose, and cherry-blossoms.
2 One of two.
3 There is a pun on iwa-tsutsuji, boulder azaleas, and iwatsutsu,
speaking.
4 Two of eight.
58 Furu-ike yn
The feet of the clouds
Tread the face of the moon
Outrageously. Chikashige

i)< &
Kao miyo to tsuki mo kasa nugu hikari katta

“Gaze upon my face!”

The moon removes her head-gear,—1
And the brilliance! (Unknown)

Metaphors :2
ft to
Tdyama no matsu ya sanagara hana no shin

The far-off mountain

Looks somehow like
The pistil of the cherry blossom. Koka

ie m
Kawa no se no mondokoro ka ya hana ihada

In the river shallows,

The floating blossoms
Are like a crest. Masanobu

fi ft £ fr R <D fa *5 It m m
Kumo iva hebi nomikomu tsuki no kaeru kana

Like a snake,
The cloud swallows up
The moon-frog. 3 Teitoku

1 Kasa means halo, and umbrella-like hat.

2 Four out of eight.
s There is a pun on kaeru, fog, and kaeru, return.
Furu-ike ya 59
3c JGl + A Ifl * I:oU IE Hi
Ten to chi no naka-ire-wata ya fuji no ytiki

Cotton-wool between
Earth and heaven,—
The snow of Mount Fuji? Masayori

Playing with words:1

£ H: o £ * j&» ft f>% 1a
Kyo wa liana sakujitsu made wa tsuhomi kana

Today’s cherry blossoms

Were buds
Until yesterday. Seian

Using set phrases:2

*Jj If Xf&V L # & & &

Ko naru ya na togete chirishi hana-gokoro

Spirit of the cherry blossoms!

Services rendered, fame won,—
You have fallen. Morinaga

m » » 3* b » & m it * & <o m m &

Musashino wa kyo wa na akeso aki no tsuki

The great plain of Musashino;

Do not dawn today,
Autumn moon! Shigetomo

± <D & i>> — & \£ x- < S w (O I-U £ m

Fuji nomi ka ichiya ni dekuru yuki no yama
1 One out of eight.
2 Three out of eight
60 Ftiru-ike ya

Is it only Mount Fuji

That in a single night
Becomes a mountain of snow? Teitoku

Among these examples, quite a number might go into

any class. Also, some are exceptional, but they arc very
few, and it is not necessary to quote them here.
That these verses are less interesting than renga, less
lively than those of Sokan and Moritake can be seen at
a glance by anyone. Please don’t imagine that I have
selected just bad verses. I chose those near at hand at
random. If you would like me to give you a hundred
examples I will give you a hundred. If you want to see
a thousand, I will show you a thousand. But it would
only be increasing trouble uselessly. A thousand verses,
ten thousand verses,—all of them, it must be said forth­
rightly, are of this kind.
Even during the sleeping time of Ashikaga,1 there were
those who began haikai, tired of the monotonous renga;
much more so when the country was at peace and the
literary world became prosperous, how could haikai worse
than a piece of wood or bamboo please people for long?
Haikai which had not yet changed at the time of Kambun,
1661-1672, began to move at the time of Empo, 1673-1680.
Seizan Soin set up the Danrin School, and from this
time the childish haikai of Teitoku school ceased to exist.
The haikai begun by those two was only for their enjoy­
ment; they had no disciples, and after their death, no one
ucceeded them for some time. Renga, which had a close
onnection with the Ashikaga family, went to decay to-
pther with it, and at the time of Toyotomi, Shoha,
11338-1573.
Furu-ike ya 61

only kept it alive. Ilideyoshi died and Shoha died, and the
Tokugawa Government shifted to Edo. Renga only kept
its form at this time; haikai was now going to spread.
The haikai of Teitoku appeared in the Kanei period,
1701-1710. As it was the time of the foundation of the
Tokugavva military government, war had ceased and people
wished to have peace; innocent humour, popular haikai
suited the taste of the time, and at last many teachers
became prosperous in Edo and Kyoto.
In addition, as the improvement in printing caused a
remarkable progress in general learning, haikai also spread
to far-off regions and became popular. This was different
from the time of Sokan and Moritake, who recited verses
and enjoyed them alone. Compared to their haikai, how­
ever, that of the Teitoku School was more vulgar, and
more “dry."
The Danrin haiku, like that of Teitoku, was unable
to get out of the realm of the comical, but the Danrin
haiku was superior to the Teitoku in the liveliness of the
construction of each verse, and thus had a little more
flavour, and showed some advance.
Personification was the rule with the Teitoku School.
The Danrin School avoided it almost entirely. An excep­
tion is the following:1

7K 0
Shiratsuyu ya mufiimbctsu naru okidokoro
The white dews;
And what a lack of discrimination
In where they fall! Soin

1 One of four.
I I

62 Furu-ike ya

The Danrin School had some charm, some flavour in it,

whereas the Teitoku School was dry and arid. A meta­
phorical verse1 of the Danrin School:

& {- M iil'l * \z. (D 6 V t £ h 0 & IS

Matsu ni fuji tako hi ni noboru keshiki ari
Wistaria on the pine;
It looks like an octopus
Climbing up a tree. Soin

Among the Danrin verses, some are novel and smart.

Renga and the Teitoku School invariably compared flowers
to clouds, snow to cotton wool, but the Danrin School went
a little deeper than this. Playing with words:2

5 o 0 ft < t* * V' (O it V jjft (ft & m

Utsuriyuku haya ikanobori kami-nobori
How swiftly
The ikanobori changes
Into the kami-nobori!3 Soin

The use of old sayings was the very life of the Danrin
School; about half the verses they made belong to this
class:4

Yo-no-naka yo cho-cho tomarc kaku mo arc

1 One of seven.
?One of five.
The ikanobori was a kite, f.own at the New Year. The kami-
>ri was an ikanobori made of paper used in the 5th Month
val.
Two of sixteen.
Fum-ike ya 63
Ah, world!
Would that you were like the butterfly
That settles quietly there!1 Soin

r\ m <o ffotrmz ft t 5k 0
Ariake no abura zo nokoru hototogisu
The oil of the lamp -
Still remaining,—
The voice of the hototogisu. Soin

The Teitoku School was fond of common sayings and

idiomatic expressions; the Danrin School went in for waka
and No. In this point the Danrin was superior in dignity
and grace.
About 80 years after the death of Moritake, Teitoku
appeared; 30 years after this the Danrin School arose.
And as times passed, and passed more quickly, the Danrin
School, which had already advanced in poetical content
and elegance, did not need to wait another 30 years for a
change. After 10 years, Danrin was already decaying;
people wanted something more fresh and strange, and the
time for literature to mature was at hand. At the end
of Empo,3 Kikaku and Sampu made Kuawase, which
were already beyond the mere play of words; their humour
was in their taste, a high-class humour.

ft & ft
Aoyagi ni komori tsutau yii-bae ya

1 This is a kind of parody of cho yo hana yo to, which means

to pet.
2 Ariake means the lamp and the dawn.
31673-1680.
64 Furu-ike ya

A bat flying
Along the green willows
In the evening glory! Kikaku

UK -\b $ ic frXtito h iD ix ft Z> V- ffl.

Akcbono ya shimo ni kahuna no aware naru
In the dawn of day,
Pitiful are the turnip leaves
Under the frost. Sampu

Some of these verses1 have nothing comic in them, but

some have. Relatively good ones have been chosen. After
three years, in the 3rd year of Tenwa,2 a collection of
verses Minashigurishii, was made by Kikaku, in
which most of the haiku avoided humour completely, and
admitted only good taste. Haikai had at last entered on
its true course. But it was not quite settled; the ideas were
still rough and complicated, lacking unity and harmony,
for example:3

&
Matsubara wa hikyaku chiisashi yuki no kurc
An evening of snow;
How small
The express runner! Issho

There were some perfect verses made at this time, and

me poets realised the basis of haikai. The world of
iku was dawning. But the good haiku at that time were
. made purposefully, but rather as if by accident. Be-
Two of eight.
1683.
3ne of eight.
Film-ike ya 65
cause, if those we think nowadays good had been thought
good also at that time, the number of that kind of verse
should be great, but it is not so; thus, such good verses
must have been made by accident.
Next year, the first year of Teikyo, 1684, there were
published the collections of Winter Days, and Nozarashi
Kiko of Basho. The verses of Nozarashi Kikd were an
advance on those of Minashiguri. But there are traces of
intellectuality in the verses yet. They had not got a
natural perfection. Basho was still not looking steadily at
nature; he had to think in order to make a verse:

ft m & X flr G9 31 # <D ft

Tsuta uete take shi-go-hon no arashi kana
Planting the ivy,
The tempest
Of a few bamboos.

This is rather natural, but the word nete, planting, is

not yet natural.

c t CJ ^ O BH
Akikaze ya yabu mo hatake mo fuwa no scki
Bamboo groves and fields also,
At the barrier of Fuwa,—
The autumn wind!

This is perfect as a verse, but this kind of thinking

about old times is also found in waka. Basho did not yet
know the particular delicate region of haiku. He is an
inch before the object. The year after next, the 3rd of
Teikyo, 1686, Basho made this unique verse:
I I

66 Furu-ike yd

# ftli * Mi Jfc tf " tf tK o W

Furu-ike ya kawazu tobikomu tnizu no ofo

That’s it! At this time, Basho got enlightened. He

supposed, up to that time, that something great, something
strange should be thought up in order to get a good verse,
but he found that an ordinary thing can be immediately
a verse. The extreme feeling, that he might become a
abandoned skeleton on the moor after a melancholy
journey; the extreme sorrow for an abandoned baby crying
in the autumn wind—it was a misunderstanding to think
that these extreme things are necessary to make a verse
interesting. That day, he was surprised that an ordinary
thing, a frog jumping into an old pond, should have become
a verse. He put the horse, the aftermath of a dream, the
moon, the smoke from the tea-fields into one verse; he
poured the darkness of the 30th day, the cedar of a
thousand years, the night wind into a verse; but when
he looked at these, and at what produced the verse of
“The old pond,” these thought-up verses were not better
than the simple and verse of “The old pond,” he felt.
Basho at last got enlightened about the delicacy of
nature, and rejected unpoetical, intellectual, made-up verses.
What he calls “without ideas” means nature itself. Read
over the verses before “The old pond,” and see whether
there is a verse like it. You won’t find a single one. As
there is no verse like it before, it is clear that he reached
a hitherto unknown region. Needless to say, nature is
the foundation of art and literature, as you may see in
renga and haikai. The verses of Sokan, Moritake, Teitoku,
and Soin are not worth calling literature, those without
nature. Though nature is not the only thing, what Basho
Film-ike ya 67
felt about the verse of “The old pond” is nature. After
that he proceeded on his way towards nature.
You must note also that the subject of this verse is
the frog, which had been forgotten by people up to that
time. The frog was sung in waka, but seldom. (Kawazu
in the Manyoshu is not the frog of nowadays.) As I said
before, the frog does not come often in renga either. There
are verses of the Teitoku School on the frog, but as they
did not portray the nature of the frog they cannot be
called verses about the frog.
Verses on the frog can be said to begin with the verse
of “The old pond.” It will be interesting for you to see
the change of ideas about the frog.1 *
i
& o V' x Efc # L b C $ tfe ft £ &
Tc wo Isuite uta moshi-aguru kawazu kana
Putting his hands together
The frog
Speaks his verse. Sdkan

$ E
Uguisu no morogoe ni tiaku kawazu kana
The frog croaks
In concert with the voices
Of the uguisu. Shoha

& 7b fa X & £
Yomikanete naku ya kawazu no uta-bukurcr

‘All the 36 are given; some are obscure in meaning.

2 Uta-bukuro means an ornamental bag used for waka, and
hung on the post of the room; also, the swollen throat of the frog.
68 Furu-ikc ya
Not being able to sing,
The frog croaks,
With its uta-bukuro. (Unknown)

tL .b D hi'ij < -\b Hi <o lift h a -u- % ?.

Tachiwakari1 naku ya kawazu no uta-awasc

The frogs’ crying

At separation
Is their poetic dialogue. (Unknown)

w L 5 £ •£ i? S jl«V'< £ ft * m
Nawashiro wo seinuru kawazu no ikusa kana

The battle of the frogs;

They are attacking,
In the rice-seedling plot. Miman

a Sfc I- W E ft t t Mi ft & M
Waka ni shisho naki uguisu to kawazu kana

In waka
They have no teacher,
The frog and the uguisu. Teitoku

ft t <o ® * E8; h * n m
Uguisu to kawazu no koe ya uta-awasc

The voices
Of the uguisu and the frog,—
A poetical dialogue! Chikashige

>; 7k co o V' tz V' tc < nfL < ty; & &

Yarimizu no tsuita ka itaku naku kawazu
‘Should not this be Tacitikawari: meaning “one after another,
in quick succession”?
Furu-ike ya 69
Water led through the garden,—
Has it reached them?
The frogs are vociferous. Soshun

4-3 IS X 111 X & B

Ole dctc tagao arasu na imogaeru

Carrying him on your back

Don’t disturb the surface of the rice-field.
Sister frog! Morichika

T X m //* ffi t* * 42: A/ £ 5 m m

Katva-naka de kawazu ga yomu ya senddka

In the river
The frogs are singing
A sendoka.1 Shigeyori

» h tf 3fc S3
Fureba naku kawazu no uta ya uchit-gin

Down it comes!
The song the frogs croak
Is a pluvial ditty. Kanki

< h & \t i> ®c ic ^ h: e> if ^ < & & *

Kuchinawa mo uta ni yawarage naku kawazu

The frogs are croaking;

At their song,
You too, 0 snakes, become milder! Koei

TkPlcilrb^^^^^ >!ft < % m

Mizukucki ni hcbi ya miyuran naku kawazu

Tanka of the form 5, 7, 7, / 5,7,7.

IIII I

70 Furu-ike ya
Where water flows out
The frogs are croaking:
A snake will appear. Mitsushige

^ V HI ft 6 Mi co !$ & d ^ l &
Fuheta iiaru kawazu no uta ya numcri-fushi

In the deep rice-field

The frogs song
Is a slimy verse.1 Sadatoki

V' < $ 3&0 t # <T> ^ Hl'J- < Mi ft *0

Ikusaba no toki no koe ka ya naku kawazu

Is it a war-cry
Of the battlefield?
Croaking frogs. Shinso

& < n.|& < (0 Sft ^ x ^ 9 7k ft

Nagaku naku kawazu no uta ya moji-amari

Croaking so long,
The song of the frogs,
Has an excess of feet. Eiji

a*V' < sxsfe — 3E #

t//a z/zwsa bumbu nido no kawazu kana

Singing and fighting,

The frog has
Literary and military accomplishments. Seisho
Oft O' CO "R ^ K jl t n|;t < ^ s ft M
Majinai no uta ka kcbi mite naku kaeru
1 Numeribushi is the kind of music played in the kabuki for a
scene of prostitutes.
Furu-ike ya 71
Is it a song of imprecation,
The frog croaking
At the sight of a snake? Ujitoshi

n -it: K <0 P tf D $ < ^ S

Ytiruse hebi kyb no hi bakari naktt kaeru
0 snake!
Let them off just today,
These croaking frogs. Kakei

# £ ii ts. J: $F ^ ££ Jj£ ic ££ * fc fn
Nomare na yo noki no jabara ni kawazu mala

Don’t be swallowed up, frogs,

Into the stomach
Of the snake in the eaves! Ichiwa

Eft X tf (i %l 111} <o # ^ ^ ^ ft n

Uta yomu wa tanzahu no i no kaeru kana

The singing ones

Are the croaking frogs
Of the ode-paper cf the well. Issetsu

m%L<0Wt # lc nr* < ^ 3 m m

Shakkyo no uta ka terai ni naku kaeru

Are they Buddhist hymns?

The frogs croaking
In the temple well. Kansetsu

# K $ < ft §* ft ^ Kl o M ^ ft m n
Ate m toa ijiki-ga-fuchi no kawazu liana i
Those who cry
At the sound of the water
Are the frogs of Ijiki-ga-Fuchi. Toshinao
72 Furu-ike ya
3E © # © il? © 5? I) ') t O /»' ft
Tamanoi no kawazu no hue mo ulai kana

The voice of the frogs

Of Tamanoi also
Are the songs of No. Shush in

® <fc * T* 2> 5 (A fc < fc m CO fill /J' ts. n fu

Uta yoinade iru toa takurada no kawazti kana

These not singing songs

Are the frogs
Of Takurada.1 Showa

o h ft JR © U ft 4o © //> te ft ft W
Tsurane-uta no tenryo ka otto ga kaivazu-scn

The entry fee

Foi the linked poems,—
This frog-money? Sukenaka

tl V' < $ # T fr © 10 JJj

Kawazu ikusa seikanko no sonae kana

The battle of the frogs.

Preparing for
The drying-up of the well. Hasen

ilii ^ »4 ^ H © V' < $ ip ts. 2. til

Jigoku-dani no kawazu wa shura no ikusa kana

The frogs in the Valley Hell

Are engaged in the battle
Of the asuras.2 Shiya

1 Takurada means a fool.

2 titanic demons warring with the gods. They live in
the ocean north of Sumeru.
Furu-ike ya 73
4: *£ it [jffl ft iz - 6 v' < £ ts. U 1a
Iki s/iini iva empu ni kacru ikusa kana

Life and death

In this Jambu dvipa i
Of fighting frogs. Naoyasu

rr h m xt & ^ < $ iz m m m
Uchiide yo kawazu ikusa ni tcppdzu

Come on out
To the battle of frogs,
On the Island of Guns.2 Issetsu

fa n V' < $ rn & iz J: 6 it & * 3

Kawara-ikusa shijo ni yoru wa kawazu kana

A battle in the dry river bed;

Those who go to the Shijo3
Are the frogs. Issetsu

ft fell V' < £ (Z fl <0 £> ¥■ ^ ® n

Akagacru ikusa ni tanome heike-gani

Red frogs!
Ask for help
From the Heike crabs.4 Issetsu

1This transitory world. Originally the Jambu dvipa is one of

the seven continents surrounding Mount Meru, so-called because
of a huge Jambu tree growing there. As it is one of the con­
tinents containing China and Japan, the name seems to have been
used meaning this worldly world.
2 This was the name given to a part of Tdkyo, Minato-ku,
where firing was practised in Edo days.
3 Shijo is one of the parts of the River Kamo in Kyoto.
* The colour of the Heike was red, that of the Genji was white.
The Heike were defeated in a sea-battle.
 74 Furu-ike ya
.
* m in tn * ft -c 7# & * 1ft
Tatsuta-gawa momiji ya huchitc akagaeru
The red autumn leaves
Of the Tatsuta River, decaying,
Become the red frogs. Saimaro

m *
t//a sac 20 shinabitari hern hoshi-kawuzu
Even their songs
Are wilted,—
Frogs in the dry field. Jiboku

Karauta wo kaga ni yawaragu kaivazu kana

The frogs in Kaga1
Softened
The songs of China.2 Fuky5

fill * & ft tf £ tf 7k o # e m
Furu-ike ya kawazu tobikomu ntizu no oto
The old pond;
A frog jumping in,—
The sound of the water. Bashd

These verses are very different from Basho’s, and this

is what he felt. Anyway, Basho opened his living eyes
to a creature, the frog. But do not suppose that Basho
thought a frog to be especially charming and lovable. A
frog is not as charming as an uguisu, not so lovely as a
hototogisu, not so pitiful as wild geese, not so lonely as
‘There was a kind of joruri in Kaga, called Kaga-bushi.
2 Karauta means Chinese poetry.
 I

Furu-ike ya 75
insects in autumn, so uta poets from olden times sang
of frogs less frequently than of hototogisu, wild geese, and
insects. How can it be said that Basho alone loved frogs
more than all the flowers and birds? He must have felt
that even the frog, which is not so beautiful or graceful,
can have charm, and become the subject of haiku.
When the frog has aesthetic value, of course uguisu,
shrikes, wild geese, insects have it, all things have it.
Basho opened his living eyes to the frog: this meant that
he opened his eyes to nature. That it was a frog was
just an accident. It was a mistake of the commonplace
teachers to put the value on the frog. We see in the
above example that the verse of “The old pond” is rare
in the history of haikai. The haiku of Basho changed
after this verse was composed, and therefore the haiku
world also changed, making this verse its centre. Though
the historical fact is not like this, Basho felt it to be so.
So, when Basho was about to die, his disciple asked for his
farewell poem, his death verse, and Basho answered:

The hokku of yesterday is the farewell poem of

today. That of today is the farewell poem of tomor­
row. There is no verse in my life which is not my
farewell poem. So if someone asks for my farewell
poem, any verse I composed of recent years may be my
farewell poem. “Every thing originally always shows
the form of Nirvana (annihilation),”
*$$0. This is the farewell remark of Shaka, and his
Buddhism is no other than these two lines,
fUtT:: frTkcO-'g1. This is my farewell poem, as I have
made my own style with this verse. Since then I have
made thousands of verses, all with this attitude. S^
I say, no particular verse is my farewell poem.
76 Finn-ike ya
“Since then I have made thousands of verses, all with
this attitude,” means that lie made haiku for (the rest of)
his life with the natural taste which he attained together
with the verse of “The old pond.” Basho himself declared
that he made this verse the demarcation of his old and
new styles, but he did not say this verse was his best.
Not only Basho but his disciples also did not say so. Kyorai
was most intimately and profoundly taught by Basho, but
he did not say anything about the verse of the old pond.
Even Shiko, who exaggerated his theory in admiration of
Basho (besides using them as examples of ten theories),
did not comment on the verse of “The old pond.” But
gradually this verse was said to be the best verse, and
moreover, some added strange theories, and it became
popular, and misunderstood. Basho himself was glad for
any verse of his after “The old pond” to be taken as his
verse; he would certainly be dissatisfied if he heard that
people afterwards chose only the verse of “The old pond.”
I also do not think the verse of “The old pond” is the good
verse,—no, I believe there are other good verses beside
‘The old pond.’” The guest nodded, and went away.
I

1!
 Chapter XXVII
SIIIKI: THE HAIKU POET

Shiki, like all Japanese perhaps, is far better at crea­

tion than at criticism. The Japanese have never produced
a Coleridge, Hazlitt, or Lamb, but Wordsworth and Keats
and Clare and Tennyson have their counterparts in Japan.
Shiki has variety, if not depth. Though he is not emotional,
he is not sentimental. There may be an excessive objec­
1 tivity, but this means no pretence, no hypocrisy. As with
Buson, whom he admired so much, he gives us pure poetry,
which never fails to satisfy us, and though it may not
! gain in depth with re-reading, we do not tire of him.
The following are verses other than the about 390 verses
contained in the previous four volumes.
# o Z i$y| iv L * £ & Pf' &
Tc ni mitsuru shijimi ureshi ya tomo wo yobu
His hands full of corbiculas,
(What happiness!)
Calling to his chum.
Happiness unshared is not happiness. No man lives
unto himself. Impression, expression, reception. And haiku
is itself an example. Shiki wishes to share his blessedness
in sharing the happiness of the boy who wishes to share
with the other boy the joy of having his hands full of
the shells.
ns a* it m as & s h d fir he
Atataka na ame ga furn nari kare-mugura
II!

78 Shiki: The Haiku Poet

1
Warm spring rain
Is falling
I On the withered goose-grass.
Though it is (early) spring, the goose-grass has put
forth no green leaves. It seems indifferent to the rain
that falls so kindly upon it. Thoreau says:
Nature never makes haste; her systems revolve at
an even pace. The bud swells imperceptibly, without
hurry or confusion, as though the short spring days
were an eternity.

Susuhaki no hokori shizumaru haran liana

The dust swept out
Came to rest
On the aspidistra leaves.
The garden is small, and when the dust is all swept
out of the room, and has subsided, and we look out, we
find that the broad dark-green leaves of the aspidistras are
clouded with the dust. We realise that all cleaning is
only making some other place dirty.

Nowalii matsn kagi no kcshiki ya liana osoki

The lespedezas
Seem to be waiting
For the autumn blast.
The lespedezas in the small garden have not yet
bloomed, though this is the time for it. The typhoon is
not yet blowing. This is a haiku after the fashion of
Shiki: The Ilaiku Poet 79
Shiki’s contemporary, Dorothy Wordsworth, who often used
“it seemed”, “as if”:
The shapes of the mist, slowly moving along, ex­
quisitely beautiful; passing over the sheep, they almost
seemed to have more of life than those quiet creatures.
U A 9 X \C < ti 0 fc Z is fr fi
Ine karite nibuku naritaru inago kana

The rice having been cut,

The grasshoppers
Are sluggish.
The insects seem to feel the omen of winter in the
reaping of the grain among which they have sported
so long.
m it ff ^ tf \f h \f <n> M <d t x ± h 5
Nomichi yukeba genge no taba no sutete aru

Going along the path over the moor,

Little posies of the milk-vetch
Thrown away.
Some children have been here, and made little bunches
of the flowers of the milk-vetch, and then left them there.
We feel, albeit unconsciously, the ubiquity of man, and
also his inconsequentiality, his monkey-like changeability
and destructiveness. We feel it, but faintly, as faintly as
the universe feels our presence in it.
SOi£&#*#***:*&*> &
Yuki no e wo ham mo kakclam hokori kana

A snow landscape
Still hanging up in spring,—
The dust on it!
 80 Shiki: The Haiku Poet
If we say that the picture of a snowy scene is still
hanging in the tokonoma though it should have been
replaced by a picture of leafy mountains, this points out
the laziness or artistic indifference of the dweller, but
^ when all this is seen in the grey dust on the black roller
at the bottom of the hanging scroll, it becomes poetry,
which is seeing one thing (as it were telescoped) in another.
it X. f A m * H W -o
Taezu hito ikon natsu-no no ishi hitotsn
Unceasingly
This stone on the summer moor
Rests people.
We feel here the common nature of human beings,
j their invisible affinity, and also their weakness, that a
mere stone by the wayside can give so many so much
comfort.
JA & tf - b
Uri nusumti koto mo ioasurete suzumi kana
The plan to steal melons
Forgotten too,—
’
Cooling in the evening.
This is good because of its truthfulness, and conse­
quently its truth to life; morality, like love, as Sidney
Smith said, depends on the temperature.
& ft £ 9 L # lc ft It ft 0 ft
Wasure-orishi hachi ni kana sake haruhi kana
Long forgotten,
But the pot-plant blooms,
This day of spring.
Shiki: The Haiku Poet 81

Man must not forget that nature never forgets.

Jh h klj\\ h & 6ft <o m /)' ts.

Yomibito wo shirazaru ham no shtlka kuna
A poem about spring,
A masterpiece:
“Author unknown.”

Shiki had been reading the Manyoshii. When we know

the name of the poet, and nothing else, we feel we know
a little about him, but when we read “By an unknown
author,” more than a thousand years ago, our imagination
is deeply stirred by this nothingness. We know this
person we don’t know better than we know our parents
and children.

M * & K «■ ft L 0fr fc t
Akikaze ya ware ni kami nashi hotoke nashi
The autumn wind;
For me
No gods, no Buddha.

I don’t know the population of Japan in 1900, and I

don’t want to, thank you, but there were all the trees and
mountains and rivers for gods anyway.

m « Id fr ft fc 5 £ n# J&
Sekkyd ni kegareta mimi wo hototogisu
Oh, ears defiled
By sermons,—
The hototogisu!

This is not haiku, rather senryu.

I

«
82 Shiki: The Haiku Poet
i * & pX V' X M ft ft ± $ gfc *t ft
Mokugc saitc fttne dekiagaru gyoson kana
A boat finished building,
The Rose of Sharon blooming,
A fishing village.
There seems some vague, far-off connection between
the ship and the flowers, as though the ship had blossomed
also. This is indeed what a modern poet, Flecker, says
explicitly at the end of The Old Ships:
It was so old a ship—who knows, who knows?
—And yet so beautiful, I watched in vain
To see the mast burst open with a rose,
And the whole deck put on its leaves again.

Senzan no momift hitosuji no nagare kana

A thousand hills,
And tinted autumnal leaves:
A single brook.
The multiplicity of nature, and its simplicity, are seen
at a glance. The same is true of the following:

Ilira-hira to kaze ni nagarete cko hitotsu

A single butterfly
Fluttering and drifting
In the wind.
The next verse has two things obscurely joined:
API
Iriguchi ni tnttgi hosu ie ya furu-stidare
Shiki: The Haiku Poet 83

Barley drying
In front of the door:
Old bamboo blinds hanging.
This is a kind of picture of dryness, the thatched roof,
the sandy ground, the barley, the blinds hanging there,—
all as if for ever.

Iro-iro no urigoe tacte semi no hiru

All the hawkers’ cries
Became silent,
Noon cicadas crying.
We seem to feel the victory of nature over humanity.
ffc SC o * IS 5 D h ft h L m <D £
Aki tatsu ya horori to ochishi semi no kara
The beginning of autumn:
The shell of a cicada
Patters down.
The light, dry empty sound is the voice of autumn, is
a presage of the inanity and deathliness of winter.

m & -c jm x x> t v 7k t m
Okurarete ivakarete liitori koshitayami
He saw me off, and we parted;
Here I am, alone,
Under the dark trees.
There is a kind of blank, a bottomless gulf in his mind.

M ft fil % 1- I* 3 ^7ft
Mai nagara uzu ni suwaruru konoha katia
1 84 Shiki: The Haiku Poet
Fluttering and dancing,
They are drawn into a vortex,
; The falling leaves.
!
:
Shiki has succeeded in catching momentarily wind-
;
5
. tossed leaves.
■

±.<dk m n
En tii hosu futon no tie no ochiba liana
Fallen leaves
On the quilts that are drying
On the verandah.
There is the similarity of lightness and softness, with
I the contrast of size and texture.

m & tr * # ju & m ^
Kumo no mine mizu nalii hatva too tvalari kcri
Billowing clouds;
Crossing over
A waterless river.
The sand and stones and boulders in the dried-up river
bed have some strange connection with the clouds piled
up in the summer sky, which themselves look rather dry.

m in o g m fc 5 &*
Manzan no tvakaba ni utsuru asahi liana
Reflected in the young leaves
Covering the whole mountain,—
The morning sun!
The sun is young like the leaves, and the whole moun­
tain is glorious with light and life.
Shiki: The Haiku Poet 85

:k & 'M \c 5{£ J: i> fc 9 tf 5

Odako tii chikayoru lobi mo nakari kcri
Not a single kite
Approaches
The great paper kite.
Paper kites are being flown in the sky, one of them
especially large, in the form of a falcon. In another part
of the sky a kite (the bird) is circling slowly round at a
great height. From fear, from dislike, or from indifference
it does not approach the paper kite. And somehow the
human world and that of birds, and the vast sky of nature
are one.

ff 7k -\b frfr B t L X $ ±Llr

Gybziti ya kaizen to shite yudachi su
A bath in the open air,—
And all of a sudden
A summer shower!
This is very close to senryu.

Otadc no hana kit uma ya c/ia no kemuri

A horse eating
The flowering knot-grass:
The smoke from under the tea-kettle.
This is the picture of a tea-house on a lonely part of
the road over Hakone. The horse, tied up to a post, eats
the flowers of the knot-grass, while the smoke of the fire
for making the tea rises lazily up into the sky. When
we read Shiki's verse we cannot help recalling one of
Basho’s:
 :
86 Shiki: The Haiku Poet

11
5t <T> ^ (0 * $ ft ;.15 lc i& (i |b »;
Michinobe no mokuge tea tuna ni kit ware keri
A Rose of Sharon
By the roadside;
1 The horse has eaten it.
:
7k M> * ffi 5 b ft *1 x $ 0 &
Mizutori ya ashi uragarcte yiihikage
Water birds,
And reeds withering,
In the setting sun.

Such verses as these may be called almost too objec­

tive, too lacking in humanity. They are nature devoid
of what even nature itself looks forward to, and appears
in mankind.

; m o & /Jn # <o & m

Mado no kage koharu no tombo mare ni tobu
r! ;
Indian summer;
' How rarely the dragonflies come,—
Their shadow on the window-pane.
!
Shiki is lying in bed looking out of the window all the
time, so he can see how seldom the dragonflies come.
•: ■
From this the loneliness.

ill * /h ffi \htc% fill fc H5: 5

Yamabuki ya kobuna iretaru oke ni chiru
The mountain rose
Scatters and falls into the tub
Of small carp.
Shiki: The Haiku Poet 87

The blue sky in the water, the yellow petals on it, and
the dark (greenish) backs of the fish showing.
jw * /ij&mtmvsz
Uigurashi ya tsukue ivo assu shii no kage
A higurashi cries;
The shadow of the pasania tree
Presses onto the table.
The darkness of the cicada's cry intensifies the power
of the shadow.
a % fc
Ilito mo nashi kokage no isti no chiri-matsuba
Nobody there;
/
A wicker chair in the shade;
Fallen pine-needles.
Even if we do not know that this was composed at the
Hoyoin, at Suma, the haiku gives us a feeling of
the decline of life, the peacefulness of a hot summer’s day.
& b A ft T ft
Mitori-suru hito wa tnina nete samnsa kana
All the sick-nurses
Fast asleep,—
Ah, the cold!
All the people who should be awake are asleep. Those
who should be asleep, the invalids, are awake. The cold
increases with the thought:
Solitude walks one heavy step more near.

Shimogare ya kyojo ni hoyttru mura no inu

I I
1
88 Shiki: The Haiku Poet

The bleak winter scene;

A village dog is barking
At a mad woman.
Nature, the dog, the woman, have something in com­
mon. All are enemies of one another. It is what Lawrence
calls a spiritual sordidness and squalour, which goes along
with the “tussle” of life.

Yudachi ya narande sawagu tuna no shiri

A sudden shower;
The line of tied-up horses,—
Their hindquarters frisk about!
!
The shower and the horses’ hindquarters have a com­
mon movement. We see the web of life quivering.
m t & * 51 * a* » s 3s it
Cho tobu ya michi-michi kawarti komori-uta
Butterflies a-flutter,
! The lullaby changes again and again
As she walks along.
The country road is long, and butterflies are many.
The girl sings all the songs she knows to the child on
her back. We feel the benevolent goodness of the world,
the alma nature, the variable, sleepy nonchalance of spring.

Take-en wo donguri hashiru arashi liana

The stormy wind!
Acorns blown along and across
The bamboo verandah.
Shiki: The Haiku Poet 89
This is the perfection of objectivity.

F 9 9 1-
Geta-bako no oku ni naki keri kirigirisu

A grasshopper chirping
In the back
Of the clog-cupboard.
The insect is in a strange, unpoetical, unnatural place,
but it chirps as if it were in some pleasant weed or on
some grassy hill. It is interesting also to see how Nature
overflows into purely human concerns. This verse is
something like Leigh Hunt’s sonnet on The Grasshopper
and the Cricket.

Ifc T- K z> H *
Dagashi uru mura no komise no mokuge kana

The Rose of Sharon;

A small shop of cheap sweets
Standing in the village.
This is partly a contrast, between the small, not over­
clean shop, and the glowing flowers; partly a harmony
between the humble shop and the rather rustic and bushy
tree. A very similar verse:

7k & S rn if 9 <o /j> B frit

Mokugc-gaki tvaraji bakari no komise kana

A small shop
With a Rose of Sharon fence,
Selling only straw sandals.

Kao too dasii nagaya no mado ya haru no ante

 90 Shiki: The Ilaihu Poet

A face stuck out

i From the window of a tenement house,—
I The spring rain.

The relation between the face looking from a window

and the spring rain that falls so steadily is hard to make
out, yet all the deeper. It is one of harmony. As said
before, nature also has its squalid and sordid side, and
the rain, and the not very charming face, and the cheap,
shack-like, one-storied tenement house are united in a
perfect union.

!!
Odoroku ya yiigao ochishi yoiva no oto
A sound at midnight,—
H How I jumped!
An evening-glory had fallen.

It is Shiki’s illness that makes him so sensitive to all

i sensations, but it is typical of our modern age to be
■

super-sensitive (in some ways) where often mental and

: physical health would make us less so.

3? ® k: m. * x m * * v- m * &
Ishihara ni yasete taoruru nogiku liana
I!
The wild camomiles,
Weak and skinny on the stony plain.
Are falling over.

This haiku is, in the original, too explanatory, but there

is a significant harmony in the small drooping flowers and
the infertile stony ground.
Shiki: The Ilaiku Poet 91

nit m * * <o m m <r> % o *

Bansha ya tern no jukushi no otsuru oto
The evening bell tolls:
The sound of ripe persimmons
Thudding in the temple garden.

The sound of the bell is large, and that of the falling

fruits slight, but Shiki’s love of religion was small and
that of persimmons great. They are therefore fairly equal
as spiritual sounds, representing as they do the tran­
scendental and the material, the ideal and the real in
human life.

Chi ni ochishi aoi fumiyuku matsuri kana

The hollyhocks falling on the ground,
People trample on them,
At the festival.

There is a festival called £5The Hollyhock

Festival of the Kamo Shrine, held on the 15th day of May
in Kyoto. The flowers are put over the gates of houses
and on the clothes or in the hair of the people. Many
fall to the ground, and are thoughtlessly or unconsciously
trodden underfoot. To the poet the flowers are not pitiful,
but neither are they of merely casual interest. There is
something deeply significant in their fate.

ft D It V
Aka-tombo tsukuba ni ktimo mo nakari keri
Red dragonflies;
On Mount Tsukuba,
There is not a cloud to be seen.
 92 Shiki: The Haiku Poet
Against the clarity of the outline of the mountain
(usually its summit is covered with clouds) and its blue
: sky, stand out the red dragonflies of autumn.

m <p> m * * in tc ft tf m <o o s
Mo no hana ya ogawa ni shizumu nabe no tsuru

; The flowering duckweed;

i The bail of the saucepan sunk
At the bottom of the brook.
This verse reminds us strongly of one by Shiki’s master,
Buson:

Furu-dera ya horoku sutcru scri no naka

The old temple:
: A baking-pan thrown away
i Among the parsley.
Somehow or other Buson’s verse has a depth, a back­
ground that Shiki’s lacks, though both are good haiku.

=!
Ki-gi no me ya shintaku no niwa totonowazu
i1
The buds come out on the trees,
But the garden of the new house

i
«:
Is not yet natural.
Thoreau says, of Wealland Canal:
In the lapse of ages, Nature will recover and in­
demnify herself, and gradually plant fit shrubs and
flowers along its borders__ Thus all works pass directly
out of the hands of the architect into the hands of
Nature, to be perfected.
•i

.
Shiki: The Haiku Poet 93

But what is interesting in Shiki's verse is the fact that

it is the buds that bring out, in reverse, the newness of
the garden.

5u 9
Yarihago no haze ni jozu ivo tsukushi keri
Playing battledore and shuttlecock
While the wind was blowing,—
The acme of skill!

The gusty wind, blowing, and then ceasing, makes the

light shuttlecock difficult to control, but both players are
clever, and the wind brings out this skilfulness. The
poetic point is the harmony of the players with what
seems antagonistic and opposed to them. The wind is a
third player. The two people out-wind the wind. This
verse is near to senryu.

3c B: it fi fife 5 5 15 & ^ ffi it C &

Ten tva hare chi tva union ya kuioa hajime
Heaven is clear;
Earth is moist;
The first tilling of the soil.

At the beginning of spring, that is, soon after the First

Day of the Year according to the old Lunar Calendar, the
farmer goes out for the first time and uses his kuioa, a
kind of broad and long hoe. The sky is clear, the earth
is wet with melted ice and snow.

#0 m ffl IS? t ffi & fc tf D

Yanagi sakura yanagi sakura to tie ni keri
 94 Shiki: The Ihuku Poet
A willow tree, a cherry tree,
A willow tree, a cherry tree,—
That’s how they were planted.
j: This seems to be purely pictorial, but it involves the
intention of the planters and the approval of the poet
himself. This secret subjectivity of haiku is their creative
power.

ft $ o m fc m w o % * l o* & $ <t
Oshi no ha ni usu-yuki tsumoru shizukasa yo
Snow falls lightly
On the wings of the mandarin ducks:
The stillness!
The snow flutters down onto the banks of the pond, onto
the branches that hang over the water, onto the dead
i branches that stick out of it. The water, the snow, the
;
birds, the whole scene is of a living quietness.
i
3£j3 m t !) o < (D !£
Samidarc ya tana e toritsulm mono no tsuru
In the summer rain,
j The creeping gourd
Has reached the trellis-work.
We feel here the power of nature, the power of the
rain that falls, each drop so small, yet so persistent, so
unceasing; and the power of this nameless gourd that
sends up its frail tendrils that nevertheless have now
reached the trellis. And with what a tie these two things,
so different from each other, are bound! The brevity of
haiku is sometimes caused by a wish to avoid particularity
 Shiki: The Haiku Poet 95

and definiteness. In the namelessness of the gourd we

feel the greatness of the power of nature, that works
without names or titles.

p <D V' v * iff. *ij 5 b b <T> m ') ffi

Hi no iri ya asa karu ato no tori-ame
The sun setting,
Rain sweeps across
The reaped hemp-fields.

This is as purely objective as we are likely to attain

to in a world where “Nothing is good or bad but thinking
makes it so.”

ft# *>&**£&& b V K- < Z

Yuku-aki no kanetsuki-ryo wo tori ni kuru
Passing autumn:
He comes to collect the money
For tolling the bell.

What is the relation between departing autumn (ac­

cording to the Old Calendar, Sept. 1st) and the coming of
the man who sounds the bell (perhaps of Kaneiji Temple,
near which Shiki lived)? It may be the vague
feeling that as the year goes on it gradually gets more
tainted with the wants and woes of human beings.

& CO 0 CO h fc fe -f fc V L&Mfr K
Fuyu no hi no atarazn narishi hoshii kana
The winter sunshine
Has moved beyond
I The sun-dried rice.
Hoshii is the rice left over from a meal, washed, and
 96 Shiki: The Haiku Poet
dried in a basket. It has been put on the verandah in
the sun, that was even then thin and weak, but now it
is out of the rays of sunlight. The verse gives us also a
feeling of poverty, not grinding, but in harmony with the
season, the poverty of nature.

V' < fc it* if <0 $t £ £ tc o fo D

!; Ikntabi ka yttki no fukasa wo tazune kcri
I Iiow many, many times
I asked about it,
The deepness of the snow!
This was written in the 29th year of Meiji, one of
“Three poems written during illness, while it was snow­
:
ing,” It expresses Shiki’s childish, irrational
pleasure in the increasing depth of the snow. This is
seeing infinity (the Spenglerian infinity) in a flake of snow,
in every new flake that falls.

t z 5 if £ 5 m #n ft tr xij is ft
Tokoro-dokoro na-batake aoki karita kana

Here and there

Green fields of vegetables
Among the bare rice-fields.
On the low hills the tinted leaves have all fallen, leaving
the branches bare. The rice has been reaped, only dirty
■
- stubble and black mud remaining. But the vegetable
1 fields, hidden until now, show bright green; nature is still
alive, still the same in other forms and other places.

7k ti x $Si ff < A o & $ a* ft

Mizu karete hashi yuku hito no samusa liana
Shiki: The Ilaiku Poet 97
Water drying up,
The people walking over the bridge,—
Their coldness!
'J'his bridge is a wooden one, the river of no great size,
and is now only sand and stones with here and there a
once wrater-logged branch.

ff < ft £ L C ti & ft V %#
Yuku aki wo shigure kaketari hdryii-ji
Horyuji:
Winter showers fall
On departing autumn.
The tiles of the temple are hardly wet with the passing
drops of rain.

ff < ffe K t * £ 3 ft (C ft - o
Yuku ivare rti todomaru nare ni aki futatsu
I going,
You remaining,—
Two autumns.
This was written in the 2nd year of Meiji, upon parting
from Soseki on the 19th of October, at Matsuyama, when
leaving for Tokyo. It is a kind of existentialism.

h L m <o -T-
E no mi chine konogoro utoshi tonari no ko
The seeds of the nettle tree are falling;
Recently, the child next door
Doesn’t come.
The fruit of the nettle-tree fall in late autumn. The
 98 Shiki: The Ilaiku Poet
child next door had no doubt been told not to go to Shiki’s,
for fear he might catch his consumption. This Shiki
understands, but it makes him sad nevertheless.

ilot m ii * i> h v to ^ u
licito no jushi-go-hon mo arinu bcshi
Cocks-combs;
There should be
Fourteen or fifteen.
This is one of the most debated verses of Shiki, written
in the 33rd year of Meiji during his last illness. The
i translation is bald, but in this case also, and especially,
the poorness of the translation, or rather, of the words
themselves, should lead the foreign reader to go behind
them to the possible or probable experience of Shiki.
■
Kyoshi and Hekigodo, the editors ot Shiki’s verses, omitted
! this haiku, apparently thinking it was of no worth. The
first to perceive its value was the poet Nagatsuka Takashi,
who said to Saito Mokichi, “There are no haiku poets now
who can understand this verse.” However, this kind of
I haiku is not in the style of Buson or even Basho. We
feel the weakness of Shiki compared with the violence of
the red flowers. There is also the way in which Shiki
transcends his own weakness, and even wishes to intensify
the strength of the plants by increasing their number.
I
Hige soru ya ueno no kane no kasumti hi ni
I shaved myself;
It was a day of mist,
The temple bell of Ueno sounding.
Shiki: The JIaiku Poet 99
This combination of the new with the old, and the
humour of the contrast is what we find also in Antony
and Cleopa ra. Between two wonderful passages, “The
barge she rat in, like a burnish’d throne,” and, “Age cannot
wither her,” comes Antony’s, “Being barber’d ten times
o’er.” The katakana comes from this verse being written
in his diary. Two years before he had written another
amusing verse on the same subject:

3S < 4 ¥ tt n & Jtr ^ L

Ftiyu chikaku kotoshi wa hige wo takuwaeshi
Winter is near at hand;
This year
I saved up my beard.
Shiki was not a handsome man, and he knew it:

m T <o rn fcif V i> U tz o

Dedemushi no kashira motageshi ni mo nilari
When the snail
Raises its face too,
It looks like me.
The form is 5, 7, 5, but somewhat irregular in rhythm,
perhaps meaningfully.
WF sS O # W- Wd <P> 1C Ti U t
Nobe no ktisa zdri no ura ni kanbashiki
The grass of the moor
Is sweet-scented
On the bottom of the sandals.
When the poet takes off his straw sandals, he finds the
soles redolent of the grass he has been walking on. There
 100 Shiki: The Haiku Pod
is a faint feeling of the all-pervasiveness of nature, the
fact that the sea is salt in every drop of it.

if m ft t - 6 if £ 5 \C h 9 (O ifi
Tsuyu-bare ya tokoro-dokoro ni ari no rnichi
. The summer rain clears up:
Here and there
Processions of ants.
!i Outlined clearly on the wet ground are lines of ants
busily running here and there on their business.

Samidare ya ueno no yama mo mi-altitari

The rains of June;
I weary of gazing
At the hills of Ueno too.
It is a sick and dying man, in bed. Shiki feels like
Christina Rossetti. He also wants to be
Fast asleep. Singing birds in their leafy cover
Cannot wake her, nor shake her the gusty blast.
Under the purple thyme and the purple clover
Sleeping at last.

I
 Chapter XXVIII
THE MEIJI ERA

Up to the Meiji Era, the history of haiku was as

follows. Basho, though not the creator of haiku, was the
founder of it, the man who by his poetry, his life, and
his teachings established haiku as a form of literature.
After the death of Basho, haiku began to degenerate into
triviality, from the lack of new poetic experience on the
part of the teachers of it. In the Temmei Era, under the
leadership, or rather with the example of Buson, many
poets in various parts of Japan declared for a return to
the principles and practice of Basho, though they did not
know quite what they were talking about, and their own
verses were on the whole simply (better) imitations of the
Basho type of verse.
After the Temmei Era, 1781-1788, another period of
further degeneration followed, until we reach the middle of
the Meiji Era. Koyo, the novelist, formed the Shigin-
sha, in the twenty third year of Meiji, 1890, and the
following year Shou, the Shii no Tomo-sha,
to resist the official, conventional, orthodox haiku writers.
In 1893, the magazine Haikai began publication, and Shiki
and Meisetsu took part in it. In 1894, Shachiku,
Seisetsu, giff, Rimpu, gjM, Keigetsu, Keion, -ggp,
and other haiku poets formed the Tsukuba Association.
The next year Koyo and Chiju, &H-, formed the Shusei
Association, However, it was Shiki alone who
brought about a revolution in the haiku world. He entered
 102 The Mciji Era
the newspaper Nihon, in which lie conducted a column of
haiku. He published Basho Zatsudan, then Haijin Buson,
and Haikai Taiyo. For his views on haiku he had as
basis his voluminous Haiku Bunrui, which classifies haiku
minutely, in twelve thick volumes.
Shiki opposed the tsukinami haiku writers from the
Tempo Era, 1830-43, onwards. Tsukinami, JJ$£, means
monthly, referring to their monthly meetings, and
thus implies conventional, static. The characteristics, that
is to say faults, of the tsukinami poets were that they
did not express their poetical experience, if any, but their
thoughts and notions about nature; they disliked originality
but did not dislike slovenliness of phrasing; they never
! used foreign words, and only a limited number of Chinese
I!
!1
expressions; their glory was in their little schools of haiku
and haiku lineage. In a word they were, not exactly
vulgar, but cheap, as orthodoxy usually is.
Shiki is said to have revolutionized haiku. He en­
deavoured to enable people to write without any very
definite spiritual or religious background; to write haiku
though not walking in the Way of Haiku. This Way of
Haiku, as originated by Bash5 two hundred years before,
(Shiki died in 1902, Basho in 1694) was a way of poverty.
It involved a pantheistic view of life, though the haiku
were not intellectual; it was mystical, yet the oneness of
things, and the unity of the poet with them was never
expressed directly. The Japanese have always felt, rightly
enough, that poetry must not be philosophical or religious,
=
t= but they have never realized that they were unconsciously
resting on the paradoxical, non-egoistic, universal, demo­
cratic basis of Mahayana Buddhism. The influence of the
1 West was towards the weakening of this basis, formally
The Meiji Era 103
and spiritually. We do not feel it implicit in the haiku of
Shiki, as we do even in Buson, to whom Shiki turned
rather than to Basho and Issa. We may say then that
Shiki was both the product of and the hastener of this
tendency, a world-tendency indeed, towards irreligion,
unpoeticalness, and mechanization.
Another and more subtle way in which Shiki helped
in the decadence of haiku was by his dropping of renga,
which had continued for seven or eight hundred years.
This perhaps is the chief reason for the decline of haiku ^
since 1900. Man is a social animal, and haikai was a
social poetry. It linked poetical minds together, and the
hokku was simply the beginning of this chain. The hokku
became haiku and had no further purpose, no object of
stimulating a train of poetical thought; it was isolated
and unnatural, that is, unsocial and unsociable. In this
sense, Shiki gave the coup de grace to haiku by declaring
that renga was not literature.
Basho, Buson, and Issa were teachers and masters of
renga, the linked poems from which haiku developed, or
rather, from which it detatched itself. Renga were the
continuum, of which haiku were the isolated phrases and
themes. When the actual or implied nexus of renga was
gone, haiku found themselves beating their ineffectual
wings in the void. This is, in my opinion, their present
lamentable condition, and until haiku are once more linked
up again with visible and invisible ties, they will continue
to be thin, rootless, unechoing, immemorable, just little
gasps of what should be a steady and unbroken breathing.
Shiki began with his shasei-ron, the theory of the
delineation of nature, but he soon found that he had also
to include the delineation of his own mind. A hundred
 104 The Meiji Era
percent objectivity is not possible, even to a scientist, who
also sees things according to the construction of his own
mind, not to speak of his body. Shiki however makes a
mistake, at least of terminology, when he writes in Iiaiku
Taiyd:
Haiku is a part of literature. Literature is part of
art 0bijutsu). For this reason, the standard of literature
is the standard of beauty.
Haiku is not really literature, for it dispenses with
words as far as possible. But even in ordinary literature,
beauty is not the standard. (Keats made the same mistake).
Haiku does not aim at beauty any more than does the
music of Bach. The universe does not aim at beauty.
Beauty is a by-product; it is a means, as Darwin showed
us; it is never an end. Shiki’s conclusion, however, is
correct:
1
Painting, sculpture, music, drama, poetry, novels are
all to be judged by the same standard.
But this standard is not beauty, however inexplicable and
indefinable beauty may be. It is poetry, to which beauty
* is friend and companion, but not a married partner. Basho
perhaps knew this; Buson an artist, did not, neither did
_ Shiki, his follower. The history of haiku would have
been different if only Buson and Shiki had realised, as Issa
did, that it is the nature of humanity and the humanity
of nature which is the important thing, not the beauty
i or the harmony. Haiku should always have been what
Wordsworth calls “seeing into the life of things.” Buson
was an artist; Shiki was a sick man; and what Thoreau
calls “the health of nature” was not their chief concern.
In the 31st year of Meiji, Shin haiku, New Haiku, was
The Mciji Era 105
published. It was the verses Shiki had published in the
Nippon newspaper, edited, with his permission (he was
now in the hospital; by Ilekireiro, Sansen, Hill,
and Toyo,
Shiki died in the 35th year of Meiji. His view of haiku
had been accepted by everyone without dissent, and his
own haiku had been the models for all contemporary poets.
The more gifted disciples of Shiki were Hekigodo and
Kyoshi, Kyoshi’s haiku being temperate and traditional,
with Hekigodo new and lively. In Meiji 31 the Hototogisu
was begun. It adopted a new attitude to haiku, and by
the Taisho Era it began to drop what had been considered
the two essential qualities of haiku, the 5, 7, 5 form, and
the season word.
Kyoshi published his view of renku in Renkuron, Meiji
37, opposing Shiki’s view that renku (renga) was not
literature. Meisetsu and Hekigodo disagreed with Kyoshi.
In the 39th year of Meiji, Hekigodo made a journey
throughout Japan, and the next year published Sanzenri,
Three Thousand Leagues, an account of his travels. Kyo­
shi, in the 31st year of Meiji, had begun dealing with haiku
in the Kokumin newspaper, and in the 41st year Toyojo
published a selection of the verses. The next year, Heki­
godo published the first part of Nippon Haiknshu, still in
the traditional form and with season words, but soon
after this he began to discard season words and write
verses of more or less than seventeen syllables. Kyoshi
opposed this new movement. At the beginning of the
Showa Era, 1926, contributors to the Hototogisu included
Kijo, MM, Suiha, TkE, Dakotsu, Sekitei, ^5|g, Fura,
^Hl, Hakuun, ygH, Hakugetsu, Tsutsuji, Gojo,
3l$c, Gesshu, Takeshi, L, Shuoshi, Seiho,
!

106 The Meiji Em

Suju, 35H-, Yahan, Bosha, Takashi, fcfr t.
Women haiku writers, who had been many in the Genroku
Era, now increased greatly. Otsuji, Zl^, in various works,
expounded his own theory of haiku. Magazines appeared
in abundance. Seisei, ffff, published Kencho, in
Osaka, also Getto, M 4, Donin, PA, in Osaka. In Kyoto,
Kubutsu, published Kenki, Aro, published
Shakunage, :&{$?£, in Tokyo, Toyojo, also in
Tokyo, Shibugaki, Shigetsu, published Haikai
Zasshi, Bakujin, ^A, published Kidachi,
Dakotsu published Unmo, iJfO:, Sekitei, ^ETIIK, published
Kabiya, JggASL Zenjido, published Ama-no-kawa,
5^coJH, Hakugetsu, ^TJ, published Sazcmka, ili^VE, Ojo,
3IM, published Shikabue, J&tS, Fura, published
Kobushi, Kaido, published Mokusei, in
« Fukuoka. Reiyoshi, separated from Kyoshi and
published Karcno, Hamato, ^A, did the same, and
published Susono, i~^(D.
This extraordinary flourishing of haiku magazines was
due to several reasons. Many haiku writers had the finan­
cial means to publish magazines. Haiku were especially
popular at this time. The magazines were not very large,
in the number of pages. All the disciples of any master
would buy the magazine to see their own haiku printed
in it.
Meisetsu was the most faithful disciple of Shiki, even
fter his death. Suiha, one of Meisetsu’s pupils, published
he magazine Kyokusui, [UitK, and another pupil of his,
igyoku, published Haijin, PA- The novelist Natsu-
e Soseki, Shiki’s friend, composed haiku (very poor ones)
Shiei, and Reiun. both also friends of
Soun, another of Shiki’s disciples, published
The Mciji Era 107
Chidori, T'f.h- Ontci, iU#, together with Seiho,
conducted the magazine Dojo, ±_h. Seisensui, ft/A?k, who
like Hekigodo, threw over the 17 syllable form and the
use of a season word, composed a kind of free verse,
expressing his views and publishing such poems in the
magazine Soun, Jflgc. Ippekiro, — also tried his hand
at free verse.
In the 15th year of Showa, flgffl, Nihon Haisho Taikei,
was published in 16 volumes, edited by
Shimpu, -u'Ml, with explanations by Seisensui. Shiki's
Complete Works were published in the Taisho Era.
 i

Chapter XXIX

: MEIJI POETS I
i
Meisetsu, P,|!t, 1847-1926, was admired by all people
h
of the world of haikai in the Meiji and Taisho Eras. He
was born in Tokyo, studied Chinese literature from an
11
early age, and later contributed to the advance of educa­
tion as a government official. He began haiku very late,
at the age of 46, under the influence of Shiki. He preferred
a tender style in haikai.
.

Yuzuki ya naya mo timaya mo ume no hage

I si The evening moon;
i
Barn and stable
Covered with the shadows of the plum tree.

*> U O Bfc t ^ 2: £ 6 Z m ft ft
Waga hoe no fukimodosarunt nowaki kana

The autumn blast

' ■

: Blows back to me
My own voice.

The autumn wind is so strong that his own voice

seems driven down his throat as he opens his mouth in
speech.
r
ae jii o - ft % 5 * m ft
Tamagawa no hitosuji hikaru fuyu-no liana.
1i

ill
:

:
!

i
!
Meiji Poets I 109
A stretch of the River Tama
Shines across
The winter moor.
This cold distant gleam gives us in a few syllables
the feeling of Macbeth, the remote splendour of nature and
the mystery of the world.
P <D ife* life (DM Oft tl
Hi no ham wo kujaku no hane no Jiikari kana
A day of spring,
The light shining
On the feathers of the peacock.
The first sunlight of the year brightens the tail of the
first of birds, the beautiful peacock.

Hara misetc suimon otsuru kawazu kana

Showing their bellies,
The frogs fall
Through the sluice-gate.
When we see the frogs all tumbled about, we feel a
kind of excitement that may come from our joyful ap­
prehension of the disorderly character of nature. After
all, the world is not a machine of religion, morality, or
science.

Akiie ni geta de agarn ya aki no ame

Going into an empty house
With my wooden clogs on:
Autumn rain.
 rr.

. 110 Meiji Poets I

It is autumn, and rain is falling. The poet goes to
look at an empty house. The rooms are dark and cold,
the tatami are all dusty and grimy, and he keeps his
wooden clogs on as he goes in; the feeling of the autumn
of the world seeps into him. The onomatopoeia is note­
worthy: a, a, a, a, a, a, a.
in
**/*.&& d 4 j* £ e> v &<d m
Hcchima burari togan darari aki no haze
The sponge cucumber dangling,
! The gourd-melon staggering,
'■
In the autumn wind.
Here again the onomatopoeia is good, but not obtrusive.
!

: Hi tomoshite yoru yiiku liito ya ume no naka

With a lantern,
Someone walking in the night,
! Through the plum trees.
This must be a large garden, or small park, full of old
plum trees. A servant perhaps, a man or a woman car­
rying a lantern, walks through it. The scent is strong;
the flowers even more beautiful at night. And the moving
i lantern reveals and hides and reveals one branch of
blossoms after another.

Meigctsu ya hashi takaraha ni fumi-narashi

The bright full moon;
Walking on the bridge,
How I made it resound!
Mciji Poets 1 Ill

Why does he do so? Is it just carelessness, or insenci-

tiveness, or stupidity? Does the loud sound express to the
ear what the moonlight does to the eye?

0j ft O 0 1c i co 5 ^ ft
Umakata no utna r.i mono-iu yosamu kana
The driver
Says something to the horse:
Cold at night.
The point of this verse is the very vagueness, the
mysterious words uttered to the horse, and the still more
mysterious relation of this horse-language to the cold of
an autumn night. Further, the horseman says something
to the horse, nothing sentimental, only in the line of work,
yet there is felt some kinship between them, the man half
animal, the horse partly human.
± R # !Pj V
Hatsunobori koko ni mo nippon danji ari
The first banner:
Here too, here too
Is a man-child of Japan!
This is a patriotic verse, but a rather good one, ex­
pressive of the hope, the elation, the pride of the father,
through the gaily coloured nobori swaying and fluttering
in the breeze.

Mado shita ni utsu ta no oto ya ishi oshi

The sound of the field
Being tilled beneath the window:
There are many stones.
 112 Meiji Poets 1
The hoe strikes again and again on the stones in the
ground. Each metallic “clink” jars on the delicate sensi­
; 1 bilities of the poet listening, and the poetical point is here,
not in the mere fact of their being many stones in the
soil. The poet feels in his very bones the stoniness of
i!
stone, its “stonehood”.

: Ganjitsu ya ikkei no lenshi fuji no yama

New Year’s Day:
One line of Princes;
Mount Fuji!

This verse aroused much comment. Is it haiku or not?

Some insisted that it was not art at all; Meisetsu said it
was “applied art.” My own opinion is that it is poetry,
patriotic poetry like that of Cowper’s Toll for the Brave,
Collins’ How Sleep the Brave, Wolfe’s The Burial of Sir
John Moore. But it is not haiku, in that the emphasis is
not really upon the season or upon the mountain, but
upon the Emperor-idea, a hero-worshipping, self-forgetting
yet self-sublimating emotion.

Ml 5S ^ fil K £ b it
Hae asobu suzuri ni haru no hizashi kana
Some flies
Playing round the ink-stone,
The spring sun shining.

We feel here the warmth and quietness of a spring

day. However, as Urano Yoshio, says in Haiku
Kanshd-ron, winter would be better.
Meiji Poets 1 113
ffi * * fc X t> fc * 0 t & <0 Jli
Ryuboku. ya taburi-taburi to haru no kawa
A piece of wood,
Bobbity, bobbity, floating down
The spring river.
The piece of wood acts according to its nature, and
according to that of the water. The water acts according
to that of the wood. This fact is however deep in the
background of the poet’s mind. What he sees is the piece
of wood in its relation to spring, its restless tranquillity.
In any other season it would have no meaning.

nm k m fL x m o st
Tabi-so ya kastimi ni kiete kanc no koe
The travelling priest
Vanishing in the mist,—
The voice of his bell.

Mukudori no dzora wataru haoto kana

The sound of the wings
Of starlings,
Crossing the wide sky.

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Kiso-gawa wa ikari kiso-yama toa warau ttari
The Kiso River is raging;
The Kiso Mountains
Are smiling.
This verse has something of Shelley in it, the personi-
11

114 Mciji Pods 1

fication, the love of strong contrast. The water of the

:
river has increased in the spring.

ft
Morai kuru chaivan no tiaka no kingyo liana
Going and fetching
A goldfish,
In a tea-bowl.

The extreme smallness of the red-brilliant fish in the

white bowl, walking along slowly so as not to spill water
and all, gives him a strange feeling. In size, monetary
equivalent, national importance, and so on, the little gold­
fish could hardly be more insignificant, yet by this very
insignificance it seems to have a cosmic meaning. Such
is the nature of man. Compare Hardy’s Last Words to a
Dumb Friend.

Kotsujiki no ko mo mago mo am higan kana

The beggar,
His child, and his grandchild,
At the spring equinox.
J i
This kind of verse is hardly possible nowadays. When
it was written we could smile at the scene of the beggar
and his daughter feeding her baby, but not now.

Ii
i I Kai-modom furin ni haya machi no haze
The wind-bell
I just bought and came back with,—
Already the wind of the town!
Meiji Poets I 115
The point of the verse is the willingness of the wind
to blow the wind-bell “quickly,” and of the wind-bell to
tinkle “quickly.”

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Tada tanomu yutampo hitotsu no samusa kana
All I ask of you,—
A hot-water-bottle:
The cold!

This is Meisetsu’s death-verse.

Seisei, WW, was born in Osaka in 1869, and died in
1937. He supported Shiki’s ideas and opposed Hekigodo
and his “new haiku,” saying that it was just “a marshal­
ling of materials.” Shuoshi said of him, “He chose difficult
subjects but dealt with them skilfully; his verses have a
generous flavour.” The following are all in the historical
line of haiku, reminding us sometimes of Basho, sometimes
of Buson.

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Suichii ni ugokanu no ya aki no kaze
Unmoving fishes
In the water;
The autumn wind.

This does not mean, I think, that the wind cannot blow
the fishes along because they are under the water, but
that the cold autumn wind affects even the fishes, though
each fish, as Thorean said, “Behind its watery shield it
dwells far from many accidents inevitable to human life.”

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Shigururu ya hito mono iwatitt kakari-bune
 116 Meiji Poe Is I

Cold winter rain;

Nobody says anything
In the anchored boat.

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Ie ni shite hi no kage ou ya fuyu no hae
Keeping in the house,
The winter fly
i
Moves with the sunshine.

The Japanese is literally, “follows the shadow of the

sun.”
i !) &
Koriote nani wo yume mini namaho liana

ii Frozen together,
What dreams do they see,
The sea-slugs?

Chdcho ni saki wo arukasu kojiki kana

The beggar
Makes the butterfly
! Walk before him.
The poetical idea of this rather thought-up verse is
3
1 that the beggar has something of fuga about him, a not
altogether inartistic relation with nature and a simple life.
Kyoshi, born in 1874, together with Hekigodo
:
helped Shiki in his “resurrection” of haiku. After Shiki’s
death he took over the Hototogisu. During his long life (he
' died in 1959) he wrote novels, essays on haiku, and a con­
i tinuous stream of verses. He believed in Shiki’s theory of
Meiji Poets I 117
haiku being descriptive poetry (shasei-ron) but added some
romantic elements. He was however conservative, and
opposed any radical change in the form or matter of haiku.

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Kare-gihu no ne ni samazama no ochiba kana

At the root
Of the withered chrysanthemum,
All kinds of fallen leaves.
As Stevenson says, “One thing calls for another,” and
the dead leaves seem to have come where desolation has
laid its hand upon the flowers now humbled of their pride.

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So shun no niwa wo megurite mon wo idem

In early spring,
Walking round the garden.
And *not going out of the gate.
There is a kind of asceticism here, or perhaps a feeling
of self-sufficiency. We can (and should) be satisfied with
so little. As Goethe says, a little warmth, a little rain
and the whole of spring is there, under our window. A
verse by Tatsuko, tLrP* Kyoshi’s daughter, born 1903:

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Kiri no hana itsumo tome ni iei kana
Staying at home;
Seen at a distance
Flowers of the paulownia tree.
The poet, as Pope says, “sees some strange comfort
every state attend.”
 118 Meiji Poets I

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Ozora ni hane no shirotac todomarcri
The snowy whiteness
Of the shuttlecock
Remained in the vast sky.
Ij The player-poet catches the flying moment as it goes,
the moment when the shuttlecock has turned in the air
i to come down again. At this moment it appears not
merely as white, shiroi, but shirotae, snowy white, gleam­
ing white, lustrous.
;
Yamadera no liomotsu mini ya hana no ame
Rain on the cherry blossoms;
Looking at the treasures
In the mountain temple.

There is somewhat of a senryfi flavour about this

haiku.

Ozora ni mokuren no hana no yuragu liana

The magnolia blossoms
Swinging and swaying
1
- In the great sky.
i
This verse is good from its simple “rightness.” The
sky and the dark purple flowers and their swaying all go
:
together in a natural union.

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Akizora wo futatsu ni tateri shii-iaiju
Meiji Poets I 119

Cutting into two

The autumn sky,—
The giant pasania tree.

Why is the autumn sky especially “cutable”? Because

it is higher, larger, more akin to mountains and great
trees.

m ft -m w & o ft m tf & v
Kusare-mizu tsubaki otsureba kubomu nari
Into the foul water
Falls a camellia flower,
Making a hollow.

The flower falls whole with a dull “plop” onto the

scum-covered water. There is a slight depression in the
water before the surface tension is broken. It needs a
very keen eye to see such a thing, and a poetic enjoyment
of the “minute particular.”

at e^ov'-c zm&frtz
Koki hikage hiite asoberu tokage kana
The lizards,
Their strong shadows drawn below them.
Are darting to and fro.

The dark shadow under the lizard brings out two

things, the heat and dazzling brightness of summer; and
the sinister, slightly devilish character of the reptile. The
next verse also emphasizes the latter characteristic:

Sankaku no tokage no kao no sukoshi tiobti ka

 120 Meiji Poets l
Hi
The lizard’s
! Triangular face,—
Is it lengthening?

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Natsu-yama no tani wo fusagishi tcra no yane
Blocking the valley
In the summer mountains,
The roof of the temple.
This is like a landscape by Sesshu, in which the beauti­
i ■
ful curving roof of the monastery reverses the form of
the narrow valley.

:
: Ishi no ue no hokori ni ftiru ya aki no ame
.
Autumn rain,
Falling on the dust
On the stones.
:
There is dust on the stones, and the autumn rain falls
on it. The rain-drops raise a little dust, become dusty
themselves. The white dust turns black, and the rain
continues to fall on the stones.

X*& K 5
. Fuyu-zare no ishi ni sukoshi ame finite yami ni keri
1
■

Signs of winter:
It rained a little on the stones,
i And then stopped.
At the beginning of winter it often rains for a short
time, and then ceases.
Meiji Poeis I 121

Taka no me no tatazumu hito ni mnkawazaru

The eye of the falcon
Does not rest on the man
Standing still down there.

This is a verse that D. H. Lawrence would have liked.

The man feels the well-deserved contempt of the bird.

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Uchimizu ni shibaraku fuji no shizuku kana
Splashing water around,
For a little while, the drip-drip
From the wistaria.

The wistaria is itself a kind of “dripping” plant, and

harmonizes well with the falling of the drops of water.
This verse is a perfect example of one of the two kinds of
poetry, showing us something we have seen and heard
often, but never knew we had.

Koganemuslii nageutsu yami no fukasa kana

Throwing out the may-bug
Into the darkness,—
How deep it was!

One thing is always ambassador to another, indeed to

all others. This haiku reminds us of one by Yayu, where
we have a kind of reverse:

Kusame shite miushinotaru liibari kana

 122 Meij. Poets I
j .
Sneezing,
I lost sight
Of the skylark.
This is the poetic form of what religious people call
“God’s leading.” Nature is always trying to attract our
attention, and using strange means to do so.

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Jakti to shite nokom dokai ya liana-ibara
Silent and lonely,
There remain steps of earth,
Wild roses blooming.
Here once there was a shrine where the country people
! came to pray; festivals were held and the inherent desola­
tion was held in abeyance. Now all is still, and as if
unwitting and unknowing the wild rose blooms in the
solitude.

Nagarcytiku daikon no ha no hayasa kana

l How swiftly
The turnip leaves
Go floating down!
:
In the speed of these leaves we feel the end of autumn.
Time is passing even more relentlessly than usual.

i| * 3! fc # M it Z> fc
Ozora ni nobi katamukcru fuyuki kana
Winter trees;
In the great sky
They lean upwards.
M&ji Poets I 123
There is something deeply significant in the way the
trees all lean one way, not towards the ground but towards
and on the sky.

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Iiaku-bolan to iu to iedomo beni honoha
“A white peony”
We say, yet
Faintly pink.

This verse has a beautiful rhythm, a kind of soft

explosion at the beginning, an undulation, and then a
vanishing sound at the end. There is in this haiku some
meaning of the vagueness of things, the unwillingness of
life to fall into strict categories, but this meaning is as
faint as the faint red tinge of the whiteness of the flower.

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Tosei ya furtiki sekikai am bakari
Treading the green grass of spring.
Everywhere
Old stone steps.

Steps, like roads, have a deep meaning for human

beings, especially empty steps. Then again, mere quantity
has a significance that quality can never quite attain to
i
for all its richness and variety, and here the number of
flights of steps gives the poet the feeling that this place
is one vast Jacob’s ladder to some never-to-be-attained f
heaven. Lastly, time is added to this deeply felt space
and motion. All the steps are worn and old, many aslant
and broken, and in their imperfection lead us from the
present into a backward eternity. It is this unexpressed
124 Mciji Poets I

combination of number, time and space that makes the

step motif in so many of Bach’s cantatas of such pro­
fundity, of such human significance.

Yamu hito no kayari mite irti kaya no naka

The sick man
In the mosquito net,
Looking out at the smudge.

There is here a harmony of darkness and weakness,

the man lying there without strength or hope, the sagging
mosquito net, the unwilling smoke of weeds and grasses.
There is a wavering, meaningless unsteadiness in life also,
which we see here with the lack-lustre eyes of the sick
man.

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Mijikayo ya hi wo keshi ni ktirn yado no mono
The short night;
An inn-servant comes
To put out the light.
The shortness of the night may be considered from
two aspects, that of its beginning and that of its ending.
The present verse is concerned with the former, and the
shortness of the summer night is felt in the way in which
the servant of the inn comes round so soon after it has
become dark to extinguish the lamps. If you ask, where
is the poetry of this verse, the answer is that it lies in
the peculiar depth and mystery of that shock of surprise
when the lights are heard and seen being put out one by
one. If you do not, by quite an effort, enter into the
Meiji Poets I 125

experience of the poet, the verse itself is vacant of

meaning.

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Muzukashiki zen-mon dereba kuzu no hana
Coming out of the Great Gate
Of the difficult Zen Temple,
A flower of the arrowroot.

The arrowroot has purplish flowers on stems hanging

down three or four inches; they bloom in autumn, the
most religious of the four seasons. The poet has just
heard a difficult sermon on Zen, full of paradoxes and
contradictions, and as he comes out of the gate with some
relief, he sees these flowers that toil not, neither do they
spin, and yet they are more alive and life-giving than the
Buddhist Solomon.

Ryogishi no toakaba semarite fttne hayashi

On both banks
The young leaves close in:
The boat is swift.
Both sides of the river are one mass of leaves shining
in the spring sunshine. There is something overwhelming
about the leaves, almost as if squeezing the boat along.
Compare the following, by Buson:

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Kishine yukii ho iva osoroshiki toakaba kana
Passing the bank,
The sail fearful
The young leaves!
 ‘ I

126 Mciji Poets I

. The original is as odd as the translation.

:.
W <o #r r o & o n
Aishito mum no hi futatsu mtishi no hoe
With longing towards each other,
The lights of two villages:
The voices of insects.
The poet is travelling along the country road at night.
On both sides of the road, in the distance, shine lights
from two villages. They seem to be beckoning, to be
yearning towards each other. And at the same time, the
insects in the autumn grasses keep up their incessant
melancholy cries.

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Ashibaya no chochin too ou samusa kana
Following after
The fleet-footed lantern,—
How cold it was!

The interesting point here is the legs of the lantern,

and together with this, the cold that is felt by the poet
as he hurries along the dark road after the other man
■ who has a lantern.
:
--
Kiri no naka ni arawaruru tsure too machi tit keri
\
Waiting in the mist,
For his companion
To appear.
ill! The poetical point is arawaruru, appear, or rather it
is that moment of suspense as he stands there alone,
Meiji Poets I 127
having gone on a little beyond his friend up the mountain
trail.

Kogarashi ya mizu karehatete ishi wo fuku

The water having dried up,

The withering winter wind
Blows on the rocks.
This is a rather trite subject, but the haiku is well done.
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Nure-en ni izuku to mo naki rakka kana

Falling petals
From nowhere
Onto the open verandah.
Suddenly there blow upon the outside verandah faintly
pink petals of cherry blossoms. There are no cherry trees
in the poet’s garden, or even nearby, as far as he knows.
Where can they have come from?
5
Uraraka ya shdji ni oke no mizu utsuru

Clear spring weather:

The paper-screen reflects
The tub-water.
“Reflects” means that the reflected light plays on it.
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IJatsu-rai ya kago no uzura no kti-ku to naku

The first thunder;

The quails in the cage
Are saying ku-ku.
 128 Meiji Poets I
In this verse there is something of the mild melancholy
'
of passing spring. The thunder is not so strong; the birds
also mutter a little.
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« Hingaslii ni hi no shizumi iru hana-no liana
i.
In the east,
The still-sunken sun:
: A flower-clad moor.
l The autumn fields with their dewy flowers lie silent
:
! in the light of dawn. The sun has not yet risen, and the
world is as if yet unborn, but the more meaningful.

& m ^ m fc sa s ft m ^ m <o n
. Hcya-beya ni ktibaru andon ya shiha no koe
Bringing round a night-light
To each of the rooms,—
The voice of the deer!
The cry of the deer is a disturbing sound. Man and
art, and the past and autumn, and then the strange cry
of nature, inarticulate, yet understood.

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Toyama ni hi no ataritaru kareno liana
<
The withered moor;
N
The sun shines
On the distant mountains.
! :(
What time of day is this? Perhaps late afternoon, or
an empty winter morning, the cold restless wind blowing
the withered grasses fitfully. The distant mountains may
have snow on their tops, but the dreariness is perhaps
Meiji Poels I 129

greater without it, brown-grey colours only.

{'1' kk <o M ( i ifi tc % ts.

Chiishii no awa wa omotaki hiwami liana
The millet
Of mid-autumn;
There is nothing heavier.
The last line is literally, “the very extreme of heavi­
ness.” The poet holds autumn in the palm of his hand.
In the weight of the grains of millet he feels the autumn
that Keats speaks of in his Ode, the first few lines of
which emphasize explicitly and implicitly (in the length
and heaviness of the lines) its weight.
Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eaves run;
To bend with apples the moss’d cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core.

Odori-ata ivaga yo no koto zo utawarum

The song of the Bon-dance:
It speaks
Of the things of our world.
As in the case of the hymns we sing, sometimes, for
some unknown reason, a line, a phrase of what we are
mechanically repeating strikes home to us, and our voice
falters. But the words of the Z>o;z-dance do not cause us
to “Fade far away, dissolve and quite forget” the life of
this world, into a haze of abstractions and generalities.
 130 Meiji Poets 1
into the infinite and intangible. This is the world they
I sing of, material, earthly, earthy, the world of action,
the world of the peasant, the eternal man who remains
■; i unchanged though cities come and go, kingdoms rise and
fall. No wonder we who live in a civilized, autumnal,
. dying world, cling with such a passionate attachment of
nostalgia to these old songs that are almost the sole
remainder of the life that earth’s primitive sons lived in
the spring-time of human history.

Saezuri no takamari owari shizumarinu

The singing of the birds,
Louder and louder, then softer and softer
To silence.
The Japanese seems to imitate the singing, zuri, mari,
wari, mari.

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Kono niwa no chijitsu no tshi no itsu made mo
Forever, these stones,
All the long day
In this garden.
:
5 A haiku about stones should be stony. A haiku about
eternity should be itself eternal.
-
=
! Fuyubi ima mabuta ni arite omotakere
| The winter sunshine
Is now heavy
i
■;
On my eyelids.
Meiji Poets I 131
This is the heaviness and languor of old age, the
warmth of the sunlight felt as weight.

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Kekishi kanashi kiile iva wasuru oi no aki
When read, sad is the history of the past!
But soon forgotten;
The autumn of the old.
Young people dislike history. It makes them feel what
they are, cheap.

ta^ ti & <d % ih

Aki-kaze ya kokoro no naka no ikti-sanga
The autumn wind!
How many mountains, how many rivers
In my heart!
The coolness of autumn induces a feeling of melancholy,
which in turn causes one to remember other mountains,
and other streams than those seen in the distance.

^ HE ^ 131 & T Jr k: tL o
Haru-kaze ya toshi too dakite oka ni tatsu
The spring wind!
With a fighting spirit
I stand on the hill.
This is a very Japanese verse. What the Japanese
have is a feeling of fighting together with nature, never
against it.

111
Ftiyn yamaji niwaka ni nnkuhi tokoro ari
 !>
■

132 Mciji Poets i

•• The winter mountain path,—
* * Suddenly coming to
A warm place.

This is almost too simple to be called poetry, and yet

lltil' it is a common experience, and we always wonder at the
: !! difference between one place and another in their power
to absorb and radiate heat.
Suiha, tKE, was born in the 5th year of Meiji, 1872,
ii and died in the 21st year of Showa, 1946. He began
writing haiku at the age of nineteen, learning from Mei-
setsu, and Kyoshi. He founded the magazine Haikai Soshi,
ii: which came to an end in 1909. Suiha’s verses
are mostly “classical” and quiet in tone, though they are
also somewhat modern in their subjectivity. He is known
for his hakujitsu, £ 0, the bright day:

Hakujitsu iva tvaga tama narishi ochiba kana

The bright day
Is my spirit, my soul,
Leaves falling.
i
a 0 ^ n & # iz ot * ^ <d is
Hakujitsu wa shakamuni butsu ya kiri no liana
The bright day;
Shakamuni the Buddha;
Flowers of the paulownia.

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Hakujitsu wa tvaga tama narishi aki no kaze
Meiji Poets I 133
The bright day
Is my soul, my spirit;
The autumn breeze.

Suiha said, “This hakujitsu is the symbol of the ideal

of my haiku. I never forget it for an instant.”

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Hitosuji no akikaze narishi kayari-kd
It was a single line
Of autumn wind,—
The mosquito-stick.
One night, at the beginning of autumn, the poet sees
the line of smoke, quiver, extend, undulate. It is the cool
autumn wind.

Kumo ni akete tsukiyo ato nashi aki no kaze

It dawns in clouds;
Nothing remains of the night and its moon;
The wind of autumn is blowing.
This “nothing remains” reminds one of Thoreau’s
words:
Over the old wooden bridges no traveller crossed.
This “no traveller” is the one who always walks deserted
roads. So this morning when clouds cover the skies,
nothing remains of that bright sphere of the evening
before; and yet the poet sees it, “in my mind’s eye,
Horatio.” This verse might be translated slightly dif­
ferently, and with a different comment:
 134 Meiji Poets I
! Dawning in clouds,
No trace of the moon-lit night—
Only the autumn wind.
What is so remarkable about nature is that it is not
merely never the same from moment to moment, but that
it annihilates each thing at each moment. Now moonlight,
now the dawn, with no connection whatsoever between
each other.
t;
!
Toslii no yo ya mono kareyamanu kaze no oto
It is New Year’s Eve;
Things withering, dying, without stop,—
The sound of the wind.
The winter wind is blowing among the trees and
bushes, branches straining, leaves dryly rustling in strange
tones. We hear “the music of the ancient earth.” And
whatever we do there is no way of bringing to an end
the painfulness of it all. There is a poem by Bridges,
Winter Nightfall, which says more explicitly what is only
implicit in the haiku.

Fuyu-yama ya doko made noboru yubinfu

The postman,—
How far will he climb
Among the winter mountains?
There is here something of the poetry and romance
that Chesterton found in such things as policemen and
waiters. The postman has something Wordsworthian about
him. He is always solitary, unresting; in, and yet not
Meiji Poets 1 135
quite of this world.
u mit m % i- & z % 5 - u v
Jakiimaku to tampo ni ashi wo soroe kcri

In the solitude,
I put my feet together
Upon the hot-water-bottle.
An old man enjoys trifling things that a young man
overlooks in his superfluity of energy, and this is why
only old people of an old country can write haiku.

Katamatle tisuki hikari no sumire kana

These violets,—
Thin rays of sunlight
Congealed!
The flowers, so soft and pure, seem like the hardened
rays of spring sunlight. The sense of sight and the sense
of touch and texture are merged.
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O-nehan ya okaze naritsu sayu no aji

The wind roars

On this Anniversary of Buddha’s Death;
The taste of the plain hot water.
Sakyamuni’s death is celebrated on the 15th of Feb­
ruary, when it is still winter. On this particular day the
wind was blowing furiously. The poet feels the warmth
of Buddha in the hot water he is drinking.
m 0 < m A 3 A M M X> fr ts.
Haru samuku sekiiru ningyo-tsukai kana
il1
136 Mc'.ji Pods I

This spring it is cold;

The puppeteer
Keeps coughing.
What we feel here is the old age of the puppeteer, his
belonging to another world than ours, and the coughless-
ness of his puppets.
H
$ ^ t* h <D $ * ft m D & CO IE
Samidare no sazanami akari niatsu no liana

The glitter of the ripples

! 1 In the summer rain;
Flowers of the pine.
The merit of this verse is the sa, da, sa, za, na, a,
h ka, ma, ha, na, which are the ripples of water and the
drops of rain.
/FJ& <d X & ^ ft t $ $l ft
Shdshd no chichi scki mo naki yudachi kana

A small photograph of my father;

A sudden shower,
But no coughing.
When his father was alive, rain would bring on a fit
of coughing. This is a very oriental verse.

Ushiro kara akikaze kitari kusa no naka

The autumn breeze

Comes blowing from behind
Among the grasses.
The point of this apparently pointless verse is “from
Meiji Poets I 137
behind.” There is a feeling of inevitability which is of
the essence of Zen, together with a more human feeling
of the uselessness of resistance to the procession of the
seasons. The behindness of the wind reminds us of the
chariot that is hurrying near; it is the old, unhappy, far-off
things; it is the one touch of nature that makes us kin
to all the melancholy of the world; it is the cow’s tail in
the Mumonkan, xxxv.
■

Chapter XXX
j t

MEIJI POETS II
;;
Shihoda, whose name is pronounced Yomota as
: a citizen, was born in 1873. He began composing haiku
!• under Hekigodo and Kyoshi, and then from Shiki together
with Rogetsu. He gradually turned to writing sketches.

Ill
ii
Kasa sashite tsugiki sliitc iru oyaji kana
Holding up an umbrella,
The old man
I III Grafting the tree.
In the fine spring rain the old man stands there with
an equally old umbrella doing the grafting. We feel the
closeness of the life of men to the earth, to trees, to rain.

Katarigusa sude ni tsukinuru yonaga kana

Topics of conversation
Already exhausted,—
The long night!
At first they speak animatedly together in the famili­
arity of the evening lamp-light, but gradually one by one
they become silent, and there comes over them a painful,
III dimly-aching sense of the slowness of the passing of time.
Toyoj5, was born in 1878, studied law, and
entered the Imperial Household. After leaving it, he wrote
Meiji Poets II 139
articles challenging Hekigodo and his new haiku. In 1914
he published many verses, including the following:

& lili co si' b ts i> <o I- x ifc a

Shibugaki no gotoki mono nite soracdo
They are like
An astringent persimmon,
I’m sorry to say, but....

From this pretendedly apologetic verse he took the title

of his magazine Astringent Persimmons, S&jitJ. A haiku
similar to the above:

Tsuma motanu ware to sadamentt aki no kure

An autumn evening;
I decided
Not to marry.

Loneliness, perversity, a love of poetry,—these three

are not altogether unconnected.

Zeppeki ni mayu tsukete nomu shimizu kana

Putting the eyebrows
To the cliff, he drinks
The clear water.
Walking along a hot summer road, the traveller comes
to a high cliff, from the bottom of which bubbles a spring
of cold water. As he bends down to drink, his eyebrows
touch the rock and the two sensations, of water and of
stone, are somehow blended together. Perhaps Toyojo
remembered Buson’s verse:
 140 Meiji Poets II
* £ 6 7|f - ffi JS fc ffc « Mfe L
Tachisaru koto ichiri mayugc tii aki no wine samushi
One league away,
And to the eyebrows
The autumn peaks are cold.

m L 7k it? SSSI" ^ 9 # D
Otoshimizu ochi-tsukusu oto mo nakari keri
The water
Being run off from the rice-field
Sounds as if it will never stop.

Just before the rice of the paddy-field is reaped, the

small sluices are opened and the water is run off into the
! streams flowing near by. This usually takes a whole day.
From among the green-waving rice-plants there come
musical sounds, and the sight of flashing water. We feel
in this verse the inexhaustible power of nature.

13®, *. T ± fc It V
Santa miete tsuchi ni tiari iru ochiba kana
From their appearance,
They are becoming earth,
These fallen leaves.
It is the beginning of winter, and the leaves lie scattered
on the ground, already decaying. Rain and frost have
done their work, and the leaf is already changing into the
earth from which it came. But it still retains its shape,
the veins showing even more clearly than before. Basho
would be glad indeed at such a further development of
his «£ < “looking carefully.”
Otsuji, ZJ$-> 1881-1920, studied Japanese literature at
Meiji Poets II 141
Tokyo University, and afterwards became a professor. Me
began to make verses in his middle-school days. He met
Hekigodo and others at the university, but later opposed
him. More than a writer of haiku, Otsuji was a critic
and expounder of the theory of haiku,1 and sought to
impose his dogmas on others.
m nil m & tn 3PF m m < ± n <• u v
Tsuyu-ake ni nogiku saktt dote aogu nari
At the end of the rainy season,
Looking up the bank
Where wild chrysanthemums are blooming.

BL m V' T % ft tc h 9 L-
Iiogo yaite nguisu matan yu-gokoro
Burning rubbish,
I will wait for the uguisu:
The mind of evening.
The poet has waited all day for the bird to come. Now
he burns some old paper, without passion, religious fervour,
intellectual curiosity, or a desire to reform the world; only
an old man with a bamboo broom sitting on the edge of
the verandah.
ZL fa * offc^iliOli
Tsubakura ya uo-ni tsukitaru yatna no eki
A load of fish has arrived
At the station in the mountains:
Swallows flying to and fro.
Snow has begun to melt in this mountainous region;
1 zLmm
 ii

142 Meiji Poets II

spring is at last here. To the small lonely station have
come boxes of fish from some distant seaside place.
t:
Swallows also have come, and add animation and life to
the scene. The original says “Swallows!” only, but this
is a little too laconic for English.

Tozato no matsnri-bayashi ya ante no tsuki

From the distant hamlet,
The music of the festival:
Rain over the moon.
It is the 15th of August of the lunar calendar, the
night of the full moon, but rain is falling. In the distance
can be heard the drum at the shrine, and all the goings-on
of the festival are imagined as the rain makes its multi­
H tudinous sounds outside.

!! Furi-yamishi fuki-yamishi yo no sayum nari

Raining, and stopping,
Blowing, and stopping,—
The serene and silent night.
; This verse is too contrived, but not bad.

Ochiba goto kanbuna ami ni liairikeri

Fallen leaves
I Fall into the net, together with
The winter crucians.
We have one object, Nature has another. We intend
to catch the fish, but Nature wants us to catch the falling
Mciji Poets II 143
leaves. Whether we wish it or not, we must always fulfil
the will of nature.
X <n> 111 co # tl Bfe »$> <5 7E M - g fc
Ili-no-yama no kure hayuru hana-na ichibd ni
The fire-mountain glows in the dusk;
As far as the eye can see,
An expanse of rape-flowers.
A verse of his last years:
fSSoB 7k * & $ fc
Hoshi-tabi no hinata ni koni samusa kana
Tabi drying, frozen,
In the sunshine:
The cold!
The black and white Japanese socks are in a position
in which their true nature is revealed, and they also
express the nature of the season.
Kanro, ££££, born in the 10th year of Meiji, was a
disciple of Shiki.
31 ^ M ^ Pi fT
Samidarc no morn ya katvaya ni yuku tokoro
In the rains of June,
»- The roof is leaking,
As I go to the privy.
There is a remarkable (and not unhumorous) relation
between the leaking of the heavens, of the roof, and of
human beings.
Roseki, §15, 1872-1919, was a pioneer of the new
world of haikai in Osaka. He composed verses from
 .

144 Mciji Poets II

.
about the age of twenty, and sent them to the Nihon
Newspaper, of which Shiki was the haiku selector. Shiki
and he admired each other, and later Shiki wrote a
preface for one of his books. He was a student of the
literature of haikai, especially of the Temmei Era.

m fc mmm*u<o n
Umi ni cliikaki tdkibi-bata ya natsu no tsuki
The millet field,
By the side of the sea,
Under the summer sun.

«©£*»*»*
Oka no ie ya tori inu asobu ko-rokugatsu
The house on the hill;
Hens sporting, dogs gambolling,—
iu The Little Sixth Month. i

Chikurei, 1856-1919, was the leader of a group,

Shuseikai, which opposed Shiki’s school. He was a
member of Parliament, and occupied various public posi­
tions. He became a selector of haiku for the Yomiuri
newspaper. Though a busy man, he devoted himself to
haikai, and left a collection of old books, Chikurei Bunko.
;i •

Shirakumo no yukiie ya ugo no natsn-kodachi

The white cloud drifted,
After the rain,
Towards the summer grove.
‘Warm days in early winter.
Mciji Poets II 145

m Xi * n T
11Oral ya shdji akureba hi no hikari
The Elysian Fields;
Opening the paper sliding-screens,—
The brilliant light of New Year’s Day.

n M ft t fi Is. L ic # iC?
Tsuki oboro nan to iva riashi ni haru-gokoro
A misty moon;
Somehow or other,
The feeling of spring.

& 13. lc co afe ^ /p # /x

Yuzora ni kozue no narabu, koharu kana
In the evening sky,
The twigs all in order:
Indian summer.
Koyo, £111, 1867-1903, a great figure of the literary
world in the Meiji Era, established a cultural circle, and
published a periodical, Garakuta Bunko, which
included novels, sketches, haikai, critical articles, etc. In
haikai he admired the Danrin School. He formed a group,
Shiginsha, which represented his strict and unspar­
ing character. He died a year after Shiki, thirty seven
years old.

Matsu-kage ya kumo miru ishi ni aki no tatsu

Under the pine trees,
Autumn begins
With the stone that looks up at the clouds.
 146 Meiji Poets II
This reminds us of Coleridge’s last leaf,
On the topmost bough that looks up to the sky.

M 9 tc.X (D Pj & 9
j-i Hatsu-fuyu ya higc soritatc no otokoburi

The beginning of winter;

My beard just shaved,
What a manly appearance!
I j
Like Soseki and Saikaku (the latter was his model)
Koyo was a novelist rather than a haiku poet. In all his
works he shows us nature as beautiful and romantic
rather than as deeply significant. Thus Koyo’s haiku
;
: belong to the Danrin School, in their intellectuality, rather
than to that of Basho.

Tochii no yiidaclii tsura too arote santo no zokujin otsu

A sudden summer shower on the way washed

my face,
And nine gallons of earthly passions
Fell away from me.

^ Ilf 5
Fune no hi no yoru no susuki wo shiraslti keri

The light on the boat

! Showed up
The pampas grass of night.
i
9 mm %
Kotsujiki no mon sari-aezu yanagi ck.ru
Meiji Poets II 147
The beggar
Does not leave the Temple Gate,
The leaves of the willow falling.
The special point of this verse is the implicitness of
the reason why the beggar does not stand up and go
home, though it is becoming dark. The mind of the
beggar is indeed like the falling willow leaves.
0 h tc 9 <0 ffi 15 t 01 BE £
lliatari no umi hoka-hoka to yarna nemurti
The sea in the sunshine;
The shore glows with heat,
The mountains slumbering.
Another verse typical of Koyo:
f£ m * M * r
Jt£ ^ K: & v
Soshi ni ari ya midori naru nan no tori no ukisu

Gazing at the Island of Sado in the distance

Is it in Soshi, i
This floating nest
Of some green bird?

& «&- id fc < ft ^ <D ® t 1- # V

Okenaku sliakuya no sakura saki ni kcri

For a tenant,
This cherry-tree has bloomed
Too profusely.
The poet has the feeling that nature is too glorious,
1 That is, the writings of Chuangtse.
 'i!
i;
148 Mciji Poets II

1 too multifariously beautiful for us miserable human beings.

■;

& t <n 3$ K Z V tc < hi $ Ip ft

Hi Fuki no ha ni koketa te ioo fuku kakittc kana
Falling over,
And wiping my hands
On the bog-rhubarb under the hedge.
As a result of falling down on the muddy country road,
he became aware of the (physical) nature of the great
leaf of the bog-rhubarb. The hedge or fence here seems
1;.• to me to be rather unnecessary, and the kana also.
p h V' -c £ & % t$> z> hUKti «;
Kuchi aite sado ga miyurti to suzumi ltcri
!
With open mouth,
The Island of Sado in the distance:
I felt the coolness.
The island of Sado is suddenly seen in the distance,
and the open mouth of wonder and joy at the sight
receives the cool wind from the sea.

W * b h t L T L # ») I£ h ft ‘X ti* tn
Arne kitaran to shite shikiri ni agaru hanabi kana
Rain about to fall,
Fireworks rising
Again and again.
This verse has twenty one syllables. The contrast
between the falling water and the rising lire is felt deeply
at this moment of double suspense, the rain about to come,
the fireworks about to go off.
! Shachiku, 1872-1913, finished the medical course
Mciji Poets II 149
of the university, and several years afterwards had a
large practice, but he had been interested in haiku from
his high-school days. He died at the age of forty two.
His collection of books, Shachiku Bunko, is now kept in
Tokyo University.
m# o m & 7k & t z>
Waka-kaede ishi no kubotni tti mizu iamaru
Water
In a hollow stone,
A young maple tree over it.

PlJ fjiJ Is.

Monzen no taijn ni kakam hatsnhi kana
The First Sun of the Year
Shines on the great tree
Before my gate.

if id -M b Z ± ffi frit
Zansetsu to tomo ni loaraniru, takigi karM
Firewood is split
Together with
The remaining snow.

U $ <o ft # < 9 t 7&<o <

Kesa no aki buktiri to ike no kawazu uku
This autumn morning
The frogs of the pond float
Plump and dilated.

* -\b n <p> M ft t 4? (D _h
Kogaraslii ya karasu no fun shiroki ishi no ue
I I

150 Meiji Poets II

The winter blast;

The droppings of the crows
Are white on the stones.
Shimei, 1850-1917, was the leader of new verse
in Kyoto. He studied German from his middle-school
days, entered a newspaper, and began to write haiku. He
advocated an aesthetic view, and composed many verses
on the beauty of Kyoto.

Hatsuniji ya shirakawa mtchi wo hanatiri-me

A flower-girl goes
Along the street to Shirakawa,
Under the first rainbow.

^# P co 55 #
Kogaraslii ya yuhi no tiaka no takaradera
The winter blast;
Takaradera Temple1
In the rays of the setting sun.

Rogetsu, 1873-1928, was greatly respected in the

haiku world after the death of Shiki. He was born in
North Japan, to which he returned after working for the
Nihon Newspaper, became a doctor, and devoted his life to
his native place. He was proficient in Chinese verse also.

Tokoroten susntte jimon jito kana

1 Also known as Yamazakidera, a temple of the Shingon Sect
in Kyoto, founded in 728. It was called “Treasure Temple”
because the Dragon God bestowed on it Uchide no Kozuchi, a
mallet which would bring the user all he desired.
Meiji Poets II 151
Sucking up the gelidium jelly,
I ask myself questions,
And answer them.
Soseki, 1867-1916, is said to have started his
literary life with haikai, like Saikaku. He was born in
Tokyo in the same year as Shiki, whose acquaintance he
made while studying English literature in Tokyo Univer­
sity. He also composed Chinese verse. Before his first
successful novel, “I am a Cat,” was published, he wrote
many verses a year. Later, his interest waned, or perhaps
he realised that his haiku were not very good. The follow­
ing verse was written lying in bed before he died of illness
at the age of fifty. It reminds us of one of 0. Henry’s
stories, The Last Leaf.

m. u: w u v' o ft & % id & z * <o m

Kazc ni hike iziire ka saki ni cliirii ko no ha
Which of these leaves
Will be the first to fall?
Ask the wind!
To tell the truth, Soseki’s verses are all about as poor ✓
as this one, sentimental, and often vulgar.

Aki no kaiva mashiro naru ishi wo hiroi keri

The autumn stream;

Picking out from it
A white stone.
What does this stone represent? Why not a black
stone? It is true that whiteness is often connected with
 I;
. -rJ-'
;!
4 152 Meiji Poets II
- :
autumn in Chines? poetry, but even then the symbolism
is too arbitrary. Y*
s
<D iL K §T% & tf*<0 ^«r]^ ft
■)

Aki no e tit [uchikomil kni no hibiki kana

I li A creek in autumn;

I
I
Echoing up,
A stake being driven in.
This is Soseki’s best haiku The point is the mysterious
«
, relation_between the sound of the posts being hit by the
' ---- * —*
r*
mallet, and tire sky/of autumn. The sound seems to rise
and be swallowed up in the infinity of blue above. There
.
is a similar feeling in Kyoshi’s dumbledore on page 121.
The following are senryu-like:
:.
PP ix X ££ co tfc £ nJ: < 7k & j&> ft
Tatakarete hiru no ha ivo haku mokugyo kana

When it is struck,
\; The wooden fish-shaped gong
:
Spits out the midday mosquitoes.

m m & * it j»: &> tc % m « m

Dammaki ya daruma ni nilaru kao iva tare

The Anniversary of Daruma;

Who is it
, !•
That looks like Daruma?

m n * % t *4 m & & m
Meigetsu ya maruki iva sd no kage-boshi

The bright full moon;

What is round
Is the priest’s shadow.
Meiji Poets II 153
This is of course the shadow of his shaven head. We
may contrast Basho’s verse with two of Soseki’s; the fall
in tone is lamentable:

^ fA X 5E & L & H ^ * -r m O
Yagatc shititt keshiki iva miczu semi no koc

There is nothing
In the voice of the cicadas
That sounds like dying so soon. Basho

& <I> W ft 1- fc <

Aki no semi shinitaku mo naki koivanc kana

Cicadas of autumn;
By their voices,
They do not wish to die. Soseki

pSSTTo<o<|J5 L 2E & Z> 0 *

Nakitatctc isukutsukubdshi shinuru hi zo

The tsukutsukuboshi
Has just begun to cry,—
But this is his last day! Soseki

Also compare Basho and Soseki in the following:

*£ fT X I- t ^ $5 M
Kinuta nte ware ni kikaseyo ya bo ga tsuma

O wife of the priest,

Strike the fulling-block,
And let me hear the sound! Bashd

Ute ya kinuta kore wa miyako no shijin nan

 154 Meiji Poets II
8 : 11
Strike the fulling-block!
The one listening here
Is a poet from the capital. Soseki

:
& n * m % i>« iji T- jit <n> an s
Meigetsu ya sesslia mo buji de kono tori
The bright autumn moon
I:
I also am quite well, thank you,
As you see.

Degawari no hana to kotacte bikko nari

The new maid answered,
“My name is Flora;”
She was a cripple.
The Japanese hana, flower, is more explicit than Flora,
and the contrast is clearer, but we must say that this is
a most odious haiku. One writer says that this verse has
“humour and pathos combined.” To see humour in this
is insulting, and to find pathos is degrading. We cannot
laugh now as the gods did at the lame Hephaestus,
spontaneously, and with no afterthoughts. To think of
the matter with pity is mere sentimentality; what’s in a
name? All that we can do, if confronted with such a
situation, is to register mentally that the name is rather
unsuitable for such a person,—that is all.

Kusuri hori mukashi furo no negai ari

Digging for medicinal roots:
In ancient times they desired
Eternal youth.
Meiji Poets II 155

In olden times people sought after the elexir of youth,

something which should render them immune from the
ravages of time. Nowadays, if we can cure only tempor­
arily our aches and pains we are well satisfied; we have
learned to moderate our desires. It is the old age of
the world, “The years that bring the philosophic mind.”

Kogarashi ya umi ni yuhi ivo fuki-orosu

The winter blast:
It blows down the setting sun
Into the sea.

This is hardly more than an imitation of Basho’s verse:

h o t 0 £ ffi fc A h fc P ft ± HI
Atsuki hi iuo umi ni iretari mogami-gawa
The Mogami River
Has washed the burning sun
Down into the sea.

The following is good, but seems imitative of Buson.

le ni-ken yanagi ni-hon no zaisho kana

Two houses,
Two willow-trees:
A human dwelling-place.

Compare this with the following two verses, the first

by Buson, the second by Michihiko:

£ * it n * * sr & m fc £ — IT
Samidare ya taiga wo mae ni ie ni-ken
II I

156 Mciji Poets IT

By a great stream
In the May rain,
Two houses.

Ic ftitatsu to-no-kuchi miete aki no yama

i
Two houses,
The doors open:
The autumn mountains.

Kata ni kite hito natsukashi ya aka-tombo

Alighting on my shoulder,
I ill ;! It seems to long for human society,
; This red dragonfly.

The poet is standing in the garden perhaps, looking at

the flowers and grasses, when a red dragonfly comes and
perches on his shoulder, as if it feels some friendliness,
some faint companionship towards him. Compare both
of Wordsworth’s poems, To a Butterfly.

Sugi-kodachi tera too zb shite shigure keri

The cryptomeria grove
Embowers the temple,
In the cold winter rain.
In the winter rain the trees surround and overhang
the temple in their enveloping protection.

Mado hikuku na-no-liana-akari yu-gumori

Meiji Poets II 157
The window is low;
The flowers of rape are a lamp
In the evening twilight.
The sky is clouded over, and the room is rather dark
inside, but an expanse of yellow rape-flowers outside
lightens the room a little through the low window.

W Z 01 %
Hatsu-fuyu ya take kirn yama no nata no oto
Early winter;
The sound of the hatchet cutting bamboos
Among the mountains.
This is perhaps imitated from a verse of Buson, but
the sound is different. The word “hatchet,” like nata no
oto, has the onomatopoeic meaning of the nature of bamboo
being cut.
We feel that Soseki represents the ending, the suffoca­
tion, the nullity of haiku as it developed after its initiation
by Basho. It is nothing but imitation and parody. The
transcendental background of Buddhist (or rather Hindu-
istic) thought has been obliterated by the so-called civiliza­
tion which Japan thought fit to import from the West.
And after all, even Wordsworth and Thoreau had little that
was new with which to revive a moribund culture. Their
best was not very different from what was already present
in haiku, and the Japanese mind has always been eager
for novelty.
Keion, Igif, 1877-1927, investigated the history of haikai
when a student of Tokyo University, and entered the
group of which Seisetsu was the leader. He studied Basho
and his school, and left many works on them.
 I I
I '
;
i
158 Meiji Poets II
!
m M £ 5 l 6 ICI f: 5 ■/)' Is.
Kuro-kumo wo ushiro m shitaru sakura kuna
fl Cherry blossoms;
Behind them there hangs
A dark cloud.
i
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Muslii no ne no naka wo ningcn ayumi-kuru

i Human beings
Come walking among
I;
The cries of insects.
H5sai, born in 1885, studied law at first, and
;.
entered an insurance company and became manager of it,
: i
but in 1923 he suddenly gave it all up and became a
mendicant, and lived in various temples in Kyoto. His
health failing, he died at the age of forty two in the arms
. of some fishermen in the hut he had lived in on an island.
His haiku are mostly “free verse.” While he was living
*1 ::
1 li
at Sumadera Temple he wrote the following:
;;:; lif80®St
■■. ■ Ichinichi mono iivazu chd no kage sastt
All day long,
Not saying a word,
Butterflies casting their shadows.
This must be on the paper-screens.
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Hilo wo soshiru kokcro wo side mame no kawa muku
Discarding
My wish to revile someone,
I shell peas.
Mciji Poets II 159
This is a splendid example of sublimation.

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Konna ni yoi tsuki wo hilori de mite nent
Such a fine moon!
Gazing at it alone,
And going to bed.

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Suitorigami ga ji wo suitoranu yd ni natta
The blotting-paper
Won’t blot
Any more.
The Japanese says “won’t suck the letters.”

# T <r> ft ii < £> b fc z>

Yonaka no fusutna tohu shimeraretaru
A sliding door shut,
In the distance,
At midnight.
Emily Dickinson also felt the meaning of the shutting
of a door, Stevenson too. When he was at Jokoji Temple:

Inaka no chiisatia shimbun wo sttgtt yonde shimatta

A small, country
Newspaper;
It was soon read.

Kugi-bako no kngi ga minna magatle iru

 ■

t
II1

.
160 Mciji Pods II
The nails
In the nail-box,—
Every blessed one bent!
i)
ffi & X < m V' V Jg <5 0^11
Utni ga yoku naide in* mura no goftikuya
The sea
; A dead calm;
The village draper’s.
i
m L V' b Td h A i>1 <» fcB t
Sabishii kara da kara tsume ga nobidasu
It’s because of loneliness,
. That’s why
My nails get so long.
Verses written when he was in his hut on Shodoshima
;li:
IHt % — K
Seki ioo shite mo hitori

i I cough,
But I’m alone.
•l

i h \c m z
! . Haka no ura ni mawaru
;
i Going round the back
! Of a grave.
! •i
This “verse” is close to senryu.
i
i! :
Niku ga yasete huru futo-bone de am
 Meiji Poets II 161
Getting thin in the flesh,
And thick in the bone.
Hosai’s verses are very much like those of Santoka.
See also page 178.

.
H.I!
1

111;
Chapter XXXI
MEIJI POETS III

Dakotsu, was born in 1885, and graduated from

Waseda University, but returned to his home in Yamanashi
Prefecture, which he seldom left afterwards. He was a
friend of Ippekiro, whose verses he greatly admired at the
1
time, for example:
£ *3 < $&o M <n>
Rasa oku ya tombo no hage kusa no kage
Putting down my kasa,
The shadows of the dragonflies,
The shadows of the grasses!
;; When we are tired, the mind fixes on small things, as
in Rossetti's The Woodspurge. As time went on, however,
; Dakotsu decided to reject Ippekiro’s new haiku, and at
last wrote verses such as:
fc o * J|| JR Id * D 3 ® CD =£
Aki tatsu ya kawase ni majiru haze no oto
Autumn has begun:
The sound of the wind
Mingles with the river shallows.
What is odd and interesting, what is haiku, is the fact
that it is only the autumn wind that blends with the sound
of the rapids. The shallows make the same sound, more
or less, all the year. The wind blows all the year round,
but it is in autumn, it is the autumn water and the autumn
Meiji Poets III 163

wind which have this special, this “autumnal" sound,

heard most distinctly and most surprisingly at the begin­
ning of autumn.

O m l-ll
bno no tsuyu rcnzan kage ivo tadashu su
The just shapes and shadows
Of the range of mountains,—
The dew on the taro leaves.
The distant mountains with the form clearly outlined;
the evening shadows defined and exact; and a vast field,
covered with dewy leaves. Everything in nature is truthful
and precise, like a picture by Rousseau.

< 5 fr fc <0 <D ffl. $£ !) 1- V

Kurogane no aki no furin nari ni keri
The black-metal wind-bell
Tinkling, tinkling;
It is autumn.
The wind-bell is hung up under the eaves in summer,
because it gives a cool sound, a sensation of coolness.
But now it is tinkling in the wind of autumn, and expresses
the coolness of the wind that shakes it. The adjective
kurogane no, black-metal, applies both to the wind-bell,
and to the wind that moves them into sound. The verse
might be translated:
The iron wind-bell
Rings the wind
Of autumn.

Ill
Yatna-gaki ya go-rokka omoki cda no saki
 164 Mciji Poets III

A mountain persimmon tree;

On the tip of the heavy branch
: Five or six fruits.

This is simply a picture, one of the commonest scenes

of the Japanese countryside in late autumn.

^ S I: o 5 L X £ L 100 Ht
Fuyu haze ni tsurushite toboshi kawaya-gami
,
. ‘ :

A crude privy;
Some pieces of toilet paper hung there,
: Fluttering in the winter wind.
i '

This is a country lavatory, exposed to public view, the

flimsy door flapping to and fro in the breeze. We see
h here the meanness, the animality, indeed the filthiness of
I! human life, undisguised by white tiles and a flush closet.
il But what catches the eye of the haiku poet is a particular
J • and semi-living thing, the paper hung up on a string
hanging from a rusty nail, old newspapers and magazines
cut up, only a few pieces remaining unused, twitching
uneasily in the gusty wind.

fc t & b * & m ±&&o%

Nakigara ya akikaze kayoii hana no ana

: The corpse;
The autumn wind blows
! : Into the nostrils.
|
When is wind breath? When is breath wind? Is the
dead man breathing? Tell me quickly!

*'] 5 « ip e n fc o & ffi ti

Kara liodo ni yamakaze no tatsn okntc liana
Meiji Pods III 165
As they reap
The late rice,
The mountain wind rises.
The days are shortening as they reap the last rice.
Evening is falling, the cold wind blows from the mountains.
Cold and darkness and the end of the year pursue the
farmers in the beshadowed fields. There is a feeling of
uneasiness, oppression, melancholy, the solitude of all men
in nature.

t X m Tt £ £? < it ft Id V
Mei tsukite yakkd samuku Jianarc keri

His life came to its end;

The smell of the medicine departs
Coldly.
The strong smell of the Chinese medicine, like the soul
of his father, begins to leave the death-room. Only cold
grief is left behind.
Fusei, jborn in 1885, began to write haiku at the
age of thirty four. Together with Seishi, Shuoshi and
others, Tokyo University Haiku Assosiation was begun.
After travelling in Europe and America he began to com­
pose verses under Kyoshi. He made haiku a kind hobby
for people to engage in, in other words his haiku was
“popular” in both the good and bad sense.

- ft h <n it <d 7k \c m <v ns

Ichimen no rakka no mizu ni kaeru no me

On the surface of the water

Covered with fallen petals,
The eyes of a frog!
 166 Mciji Poets III

1 like frogs.
40 If ifc \t t> co (3: t) & M- \c \f !)
Fuyu Itikage milti liainobori use ni kcri
The winter sunlight
Crawls up the trunk,
And fades away.
This reminds us of something Hardy wrote in his
Journal in 1917, June 9:
It is now the time of long days, when the sun seems
reluctant to take leave of the trees at evening—the
shine climbing up the trunks, reappearing higher, and
still fondly grasping the tree-tops till long after.
■ ■:■
i

Nani mo ka mo shitte oru nari kamado neko

There’s nothing at all
He doesn’t know,
This cat asleep on the kitchen range.

- There is the modesty of Hardy and Vaughan in this

verse, the modesty of nature, modesty towards nature.
# h O 5 =* y ya CO J£ t W lit 7k
Kitchi atsuru koppu no atsuki salb-mizu
|
! I put my lips
; To the thick glass
! Of sugared water.
:;
Even poor people feel that they are poor and neglected
! and are living an animal-like life,—when they see the thick
| cup, and when they pick it up, but most of all when they
5, put it to their lips. Thick glasses are one of the causes
Meiji Poets III 167
of communism.

m m k It & & k m x m ^
Zangiku ni talazumu kyaku wo dete niuko
Going out to meet
The visitor standing by
The remaining chrysanthemums.

This is a verse unusually full of matter. The owner

of the house, being very fond of flowers, and particularly
of chrysanthemums, had planted some near the gate. Now
only a few remain, and are all the more meaningful.
Hearing the gate open, he expects the visitor to ring the
bell, but he does not, and, lcoking out of the window,
he sees a friend of his standing gazing at the chrysanthe­
mums. It is indeed a moment of heaven for him, a heaven
above that in which his friend has found himself to be.
We may compare this verse for its density of material
to Buson’s well-known verse, which is rather clumsy even
in the original:

Ayu kurele yorade sugiyuku yowa no nton

Presenting the trout,
I did not go in, but went on:
The midnight gate.

&©*& £ V % X fr 9^6
Yozakura ya tdzakari kite kaeri-miru
Evening cherry-blossoms:
Looking back at them,
As they become more distant.
■ 1 ••1.

168 Mciji Poets III

Looking back, in the distance the cherry-blossoms are
still shining in their beauty above the hanging lanterns.
i The flowers still linger in the eye as in the heart, and
! n: indeed become more beautiful as they recede.

;; F3 P & LU 7k L 3 E rill
I Kadoguchi too yamamizu hashiru shobu kana
\\
Past the gate
■ Flows the mountain stream,
Irises blooming there.
a The stream that comes from the hills above the house
flows before the house, and irises that have been planted
:i in it bloom at their appointed time. The water makes
ii its manifold sounds, the flowers are silent.
; ■!!
Reiyoshi, was born in 1886 and died in 1914,
a shorter life than many of his confreres. His verses are
typically those of the Taisho Era, 1912-1925, neither tradi­
.
tional nor modern, and somewhat dull. There is a lack
] of “sensation” even in his best poems, for example:
! fill o Ik t *c & 5 If ft
Chi no soho ni mushi ikite iru kareno kana

Beneath the earth

Live insects
On this withered moor.
ii Sekitei, born in 1S86, had a medical education,
but led an aimless life for some time. He entered a
newspaper office in 1917. He painted haiga besides writing
haiku in his middle years. He was ill in the last part of
his life. He died in 1951. Sekitei used marks of emphasis,
a kind of Japanese italics, to bring out the meaning, but
Mciji Poets III 169
they only disfigure and weaken the verse; for example.

m m ic k c n x u o m * a* ts.
Ilamakaze ni nagurete takaki chocho liana
The butterfly,
Buffeted by the shore winds,
Flies high.
A verse referring to his days of wandering, %(3|:

Otnoimiru ya ivaga shi-kabane ni furu mizore

Thinking about it,
Sleet falling,
Upon my corpse.
This reminds us of Hamlet’s, “Into my grave.” Like
most of the haiku writers of the Taisho Era, Sekitei
was at his best when he combined the objective (scene)
with the subjective (feeling). An example, a well-known
verse, written in 1914:

Akikaze ya moyd no chigau sara futalsu

The autumn wind;
Two plates
Of different patterns.

Yorti no kumo mizit-miznshisa ya rai no ato

After the thunder,
The freshness
Of the evening clouds!
 ' J :

170 Meiji Pods III

\ ■

15 * i£ * t X z: t z 6 Ms *> Sift
lloso boso to mata futa-tokoro to no mushi
!
'
In the garden of my hermitage,
Insects singing cheerlessly
IS In two places still.

Shunrai ya dokoka tio ochi ni ttakti hibari

Spring thunder;
Somewhere or other, far-off,
A skylark singing.
This is Wordsworthian in its simplicity. It is the music
of nature as Beethoven heard it. Goethe and Homer
; would have listened also. The poet is walking along the
country path, oblivious of the skylark singing above him.
Suddenly, distant mutterings of thunder are heard and as
he listens, he hears also the skylark’s voice. The distant
and the near, the vast and the small are united in his mind
as they are united in nature.
I
: i
Chojd ya kotoni nogiku no fukare ori
On the top of the mountain
The wind blows the wild camomiles
Especially.
The strength of nature is manifested most by the
weakest thing. The wind blows all alike, but the small
“field chrysanthemums” wave frantically.

Tstiki too mini tsura tie ni sliite araki kaze

Mciji Pods III 171
The rough wind
Mows on the face
Looking at the moon.

The moonlight and the wind are felt as two different

forms of the same thing.
Fura, was born in 1888, and died in 1954. From
his early days he was interested in the literature of the
Edo Period, Samba, Chikamatsu, and so on. He had a
rather unhappy childhood, and was moralistically inclined.
He later became interested in the paintings of Turner and
Blake. At this time he was very fond of a verse of
Sekitei:

ft *
Taka-daka to cho koyttru tani no fukasa kana
High aloft,
A butterfly crosses the valley:
How deep it is!

He entered a newspaper office, and published various

writings and collections of his verses, which are rather
dark and simple like the Hokuriku district where he lived
for some time.

Fuyu-yama ya michi atsumarite hito-taira

The winter mountains:
Where the paths meet,
A level place.

The steep, rocky mountains rise up into the cold sky.

Climbing the skirts of the mountain we arrive at a level
 172 Meiji Poets III
place where several paths come together; sand and with­
ered grasses make it desolate, but not meaningless. It
I has almost a symbolic meaning, a faint touch of friendli­
ness in the austerity of nature.

||
Tcku kislii knrasu no tomam fuyu kodaclii
How far I have come!
A crow perched
On the winter grove.
There is something sinister in the black bird sitting
there alone, when we are so far from home.
Takeshi, B, was born in 1889. After several aber­
rations he adhered to the Kyoshi school.
|
mm* ± re * t m <o & m ^ *
Haru kuruni hana naki niwa no ochiba kana
Sprirg draws to its close;
Blossoms fall
In a garden with no cherry trees.

;
 :

5 I?

m
ii

:.

■ •

: ■!

-!
 Chapter XXXII
SANTOKA

To give a modern poet a whole chapter to himself,

albeit a short one, may seem strange, but Santoka belongs
to the small group of beggar-like haiku poets; Rotsu is
another example, and Basho and Issa are not dissimilar.
Santoka, was born in 1882 of a landowner in
Yamaguchi Prefecture. After retiring from Waseda Uni­
versity on account of a nervous breakdown in 1910, he
married, set up a brewery with his father, whose business
had failed, and together with him went bankrupt in 1916.
He had begun to write haiku already in 1911, under
Seisensui. He separated from his wife in 1920, and tried
various jobs, but did not continue in them. From 1926,
with a kasa and a begging bowl, he wandered all over Japan
for eight years, and then made a hermitage in 1932 back
in Yamaguchi Prefecture, and yet another outside Miyuki-
dera Temple. He ended his life of wandering and drinking
in 1940.
Here are a few anecdotes of the life of Santoka, taken
from Haijin Santoka, by Oyama Sumita. When the author
visited Gochuan, the hut-hermitage where Santoka lived
in 1938, Santoka asked him if he had had his midday meal.
On hearing that he had not, he brought in an iron bowl
of rice, and a single pimento, and put it on the tatami.
Oyama began to weep, it was so hot. Santoka sat gazing
at him, and on being asked, “Why don’t you eat too?”
told him, “I have only one bowl.” Thinking of Ryokan,
 174 Santoka

he finished his rice. SanlGka look the bowl, filled i( with

rice (which was mixed with barley and other things) and
ate it together with the remains of the pimento. Santoka
washed the bowl in the water the rice was washed in,
but did not throw away the water. He used it to wash
the floor, and then as manure for his little garden.
One December, the author stayed the night with San­
toka. There was only one quilt, so Santoka gave him
this, and three magazines of Kaizo or Bungei Shunju for a
pillow, and spread on the top of him his own underclothes
. and summer garments, and then everything that remained
in the cupboard. As he was still cold, Santoka put his
little desk over him, reminding us of what Thoreau says
in The Week on the Concord, Tuesday:

But as it grew colder towards midnight, I at length

encased myself completely in boards, managing even
to put a board on top of me, with a large stone on it,
to keep it down.

At last he went to sleep, and when he woke at dawn he

HI found Santoka still sitting by him doing zazen.
Even though he had no rice, he would buy sake to
drink, being unable to keep money in his pocket. Someone
•i
gave him a tombi, a kind of coat used in the Meiji Era.
He was very pleased, for two or three days, and then gave
it to someone else. One autumn Seisensui came to see
him, and gave him a piece of calligraphy, *A, Gochu
ichinin, referring to his hut-hermitage, Santoka
had it framed, and for some time enjoyed it, but then gave
it away.
One night Santoka came home at two o’clock in the
morning, followed by a dog with a very big rice-cake in
Santoka 175
its mouth. He received this and roasted it and ate it.
Santoka loved weeds, like Clare, and wrote in his diary
for the 19th of August, 1940:
Those who do not know the meaning of weeds do
not know the mind of Nature. Weeds grasp their own
essence and express its truth.
He wrote many verses on weeds. His view of life is
given in another entry in his diary:
I do not believe in a future world. I deny the past.
I believe entirely in the present. We must employ our
whole body and soul in this eternal moment. I believe
in the universal spirit, but the spirit of any particular
man I reject. Each creature comes from the Whole,
and goes back to it. From this point of view we may
say that life is an approaching; death is a returning.
In these anecdotes about Santoka we see the natural­
ness of his life, his unattachedness to things, and his lack
of plan in everything, like God’s.
He put every ounce of his spiritual energy into his
verses, which were often free as to form and season-word
like those of his teacher Seisensui. He recalls to us Pascal,
Kierkegaard, Kafka, Kraus, Rilke, and others of the
“disinherited mind.” The verses are a combination of
Zen, Buddhism, and Japaneseness, the last word implying
an innate appreciation of the transitoriness of life, the
just-so-ness, the thus-ness of things, their existence value.

5 L 5 t j&s tc <D L C ft X »$> <

Ushiro-sugata no shigurctc yuku ha
My back view as I go,
Wetted with the winter rain?
 i
•:
176 Santoka
;| ;
We may compare this with Issa’s verse on a picture
ji
of himself:

5 ue e> & -c *> & fc 3c & fife

Ushiro kara mite mo samuge na atama kana
u Even seen from behind,
His head looks
Cold.
i But Santoka’s verse is better, I think, because it gives
us the picture of himself as viewed by the friends who
are seeing him off.
n
won't M
Itsumademo tabi too sum koto no tsume wo kirn
Up to the very end, it is journeying,
And cutting our (toe-) nails.

We must journey alone through life; and we must cut

j
■!

our toe-nails. These things are so, inevitably.

! ^ 5 £ £ li < LT* cp'^-
Furusato wo tdkushite ki no me
My native place
Far away:
The buds on the trees.
: When we are young, neither far nor near, youth nor
I
age has any very deep meaning, but when we are old,
distance and youth affect us beyond measure.

! $ ft <0 ^ ^ ftc
Tetsubachi no naka e mo arare
Into the iron bowl also,
Hailstones.
 Santoka 177
Democracy is a weak word to express the universal,
all-penetrating, indiscriminate, “religious” power of nature.
$£ ^ 13- o t y m rs o tc
Kasa c pottori tsubaki datta

Plop on my kasa
The flower of the camellia!
This verse is very good in its onomatopoeia, not merely
the poltori, but the clatta at the end.
v' ft k V' x & y x x> b v <o m £ *5 <
Iladaite tarite hitori no hashi ivo oku

I have gratefully received it;

It was enough;
I lay down my chopsticks.
This would make a good death-poem. We have received
what we were born to receive. We have had enough.
We used our own chopsticks and fed ourselves. We now
lay them down. Compare Landor’s “I warmed both hands,”
which is however the verse of a well-off, artistic, and
self-satisfied man.
D o j&» ft it t ft 9 Z < X b- <D #
Shiznkana michi to nari dokudami no tne

The road became quiet and solitary;

Dokudami is budding.
The dokudami, also called shibuki, is a small, ill-smelling
weed with a four-petalled white flower that blooms in
summer. The quietness of the road, and of his mind, is
revealed to us by his noticing such a small and insignificant
thing as the buds of this weed.
I
178 jfi
.V*'
.r, v Santoka

hi 30 fc V' T 5ft * — A
Karasu naite watashi mo hitori
■ V A crow is cawing;.
t>KA*'- •JP I also am by myself.
A'
Santoka wrote this verse in response to the following
V,V * by Hosai,

30
Karasu ga damatte tonde itta
A crow flew by,
In silence.
Hosai, 1885-1926, became head of a life insurance com­
i pany, wandered in Manchuria, then, after some deep
experience in 1923, sold all his belongings, became a monk
;{
in various temples, and died a year after his retirement
from the world. He comes on page 200. v

Wake-itte mo wake-itte mo aoi yama

Going further into them,
And further into them,
Still more green mountains.

There is in this verse a feeling of infinity in space, not

ll;
beyond it, and something sad in it, as in the poetry
of Christina Rossetti. It reminds us of lines in Words­
worth’s Stepping Westward:
the thought
Of travelling through the world that lay
Before me in my endless way.

It 2? M & Jh, X Z. ft \t it b £ ^ <o ft

Shitodo ni nurete kore wa michishirube no ishi
“iW/- 0^-- * jXo'V--
Sanloka 179

This is the stone,

Drenched with rain,
That marks the way.
The poet also is wet, but feels a faint but deep thank­
fulness to the stone. Compare Issa’s verse, which is much
more direct, and to this extent less poetical, less religious:

A <0 & 1- L <# ii X li t $ &

Ilito no tame ni shigurete hotoke sama
Rained upon
For all our sakes,
Iiotoke Sama.
Hotoke Sama is the stone statue of some Buddha of a
wayside shrine.

Ko-no-ha chiru aruki-tsumeru

Leaves of the trees fall;
Walking on and on.

This is hearing
Time’s winged chariot hurrying near,
in the falling of the leaves.

L £ 5
Sei-slii no naka no yuki furi-shikiru
The snow of life and death
Falls incessantly. i

Saigyo says:
1 Literally, “ The snow in the midst of life and death falls
ceaselessy.”
Ill

180 Santoka

ti' cO |1$ S 0 »4 $ if < £ •£ b ft

We know well
That this cicada-shell body
Is but an illusion,
But when it snows,
The days are chill.

Fumi-wakeru hagi yo susuki yo

Walking through
. The bush clover, the pampas grass,
Walking on through them.
We see the beauty and pathos of the bush-clover and
the pampas grass, the dew on them, and the sunlight on
it, but we pass through and beyond them, not lingering
with their beauty but going on with our life as they do
with theirs.

^5^0 b b T 7k £ ^
Hyo-hyo to shite iniztt too ajiwau
Buoyantly we go
si' Like the wind,
. Tasting water.

■ The Rubaiyat says that we come

Into this Universe, and Why not knowing,
Nor Whence, like Water willy-nilly flowing.
Tasting water is different from drinking it. The first
has meaning, the second only use.
Santoka 181

Ob V V fj( tc < n ti X fo Z>

Ilitori dc ka ni kuwarcte iru
I am bitten by mosquitoes,
Quite alone.

There is something in the itching that intensifies, or

rather brings out the meaning of the loneliness of a human
being.

Kasa ni tombo wo lomarasete arnku

I walk along,
Letting the dragon-fly
Perch on my kasa.

The poet walks a little more steadily, so that the

dragon-fly, which he hears perch on his kasa, is not
frightened away from it. Compare Hosai’s verse:

b L I* m L V' IT b £ !) l£ Zfe X < n tc

Tombo ga sabishii tsukne ni tomari ni kite kureta
The dragon-fly
Kindly came and perched
On this lonely desk.

L <' o £ & ft V' T' & £

Shigururu ya shinanaide iru
Cold winter rain;
I am still alive.

This “verse” expresses something very simple but

profound. This “not being dead” does not mean “not
dead yet”; it does not mean that he is grateful for life.
It is the mere, brute fact of not being dead, just like
 ! 182 Santoka
i-
not being fine warm weather. The same applies to the
following:
£ p L i t V' b fc b ^ V' "C S: 5
Do shiyo mo nai watashi ga aruite oru
;j

I am walking;
i; It cannot be otherwise.

! ffl n, # o fc jii * m *
ICare-kitta kaiva ivo ivataru
Crossing over
A dried up river.
This “verse” asks much from the reader, even more
than the orthodox haiku. Though it is so short, 11 syllables
instead of 17, its onomatopoeia is good,
! krktkwwwtr,
the k and t sounds expressing the dryness, the iu and r
sounds the water that is not there.

Sukkari karete mame to natte ini

Quite withered up,
It is just beans.
Nothing could be barer than this verse, except the
ir scene itself, just dried-up earth and yellow bean-pods,
open, with the dry beans showing.

! x t ft ft V' #j <n> & ^ £ £

II! Sutekirenai nimotsu no omosa mae ushiro
I can’t throw it away,
But how heavy my pack,

I
Before and behind!
Santoka 183
This may be compared with what Basho says at the
beginning of Oku no Hosomichi, about having to carry
the things that his friends had kindly given him.
h <n> n a* *5 h v TcffiK tafo x fo z>
Ano kumo ga otoshita atne ni nurete ini
I am wet
By the rain
From that cloud.
The poet feels no more animosity towards the cloud
than it does to him. He moves, and the cloud moves;
and when they come together, a wetting takes place.

Aki to natta zasso ni siiwaru

The grasses
That have become autumn,—
Sitting down in them.
The poet feels swallowed up in autumn,—not in a
vague, mystical way, but that he is sitting on autumn,
looking at autumn, breathing it, eating it, being it. The
next verse seems a continuation of this:
m&z. A, Xti-Cl^fE
H5i konna ni yaburete kusa no mi
Seeds of grasses;
My monkish robe
Is so worn!
When he stands up, he finds all kinds of seeds have
stuck to his clothes, and as he looks at them he notices
how worn and old they are.
 1 11 ;

184 Santdka
I b ti tf $: - t> b V' o < o < if b b
Toshi torcba kokyo koishii tsukutsuku-bdshi
As I grow old,
I yearn for my native place:
TsukutsukuWshi!
The cicadas are crying tsukutsukuboshi, which sounds
somewhat like kokydkoishi, kokyokoishi, “I yearn for my
native place.” Old age, love of one’s native place, the
1.1
voices of the cicadas,—these are different manifestations
of one thing. What is this One Thing?

Mizuoto to issho ni sato e oritc kita

S Together with the sound of the water,
!
I came down to my native village.
i Hi
In Hermann Hesse’s Siddhartha we feel the closeness of
man and flowing water. What is man himself indeed but
■

walking water, laughing, weeping, thinking, enlightened

t water?

b * b ^ & << s m tf i) <o ffi x* h

Shimi-jimi taberu meshi bakari no meshi de aril

r
Intently
I eat my meal
I si Of boiled rice only.
Just like an animal, almost an animal, with what Huxley
calls “animal grace,” which is far from gracefulness.

£ o It < M & ft V' & & g

Mattaku kumo ga nai kasa wo nngi
Santoka 185

Not a single cloud in the sky;

I take off my kaso.
Hosai’s verse is:

-X^(D L It tn.T- fr X b -f
Ozora no shita boshi kaburazu
Under the vast sky
I have no hat on.
We may compare Mr Cronch, in Powys’s Lie Thee
Down Oddity! who takes off his hat as the great chimney
falls on him. Also we may contrast Housman’s “Shoulder
the sky!”

Amadarc no oto mo toshi-totta

The sound of the rain-drops also
Has grown older.
Hosai’s verse:

Hisashiburi no ante no amadarc no oto

We haven’t had any rain for a long time:
The sound of the rain-drops.
To see youth in the rain-drops when we are young,
age in the rain-drops when we are old, this is true wisdom,
for the rain-drops are both young and old, and we ourselves
but the rain-drops of a passing shower.

m ft < ft diui z \t n
Mono kou ie mo naku nari yama ni iva kttmo
No house more to beg from;
Clouds over the mountains.
 186 Santoka
■

■ :

This was composed in Kyushu in the afternoon of an

Indian summer. Walking on and on, Santoka came to a
li
.Hill vast plain. There were no more houses where he could
beg his food. Only in the distance a long range of
mountains, and the clouds piled upon them.
a \w;
Kasa mo moridashita ka
Has my kasa too
Begun to leak?
.
When the only kasa he has begins to leak, the poet feels
deeply the impermanence of things. The kasa is part of
himself. The body itself is only lent like any other thing,
!! and wears thin and old with the years.
.
hx i> ii < & * fc 5 < m ft D
, ■ Ate mo ttaktt fumiaruku kusa mina karetari
!
i
The grasses I tread,
i
Uncertain and fickle,
Are all withered away.

There is a certain grimness here, a subjectivity that

is nevertheless not unjustified in the works of nature.
i
The poet walks, as chance (that is, destiny) wills it, over

31 '
the brown and withered grasses. They too have followed
their destiny, so out of accord with what he could have
wished. Like Basho’s morning-glory, these grasses could
; not be his friend. And yet, as deep as, or perhaps deeper
than the instinct for the changeless is the instinct for
change, since this changefulness is an aspect of the
Buddha-nature of both man and grass.
Santoka 187

III m h tc tc ts P ct^lt : L i)> is

Yama-suso alataka na hi ni narabu haka suhoshi kana
In the warm sunlight
At the foot of the hill, standing side by side,
A few graves.
What brings out the meaning of the scene is the
fewness of the graves. Even death itself seems less
significant under the sky that overarches the grassy
mountains. This verse has twenty one syllables and no
season word, for the word “warm” will apply to any
season, even to winter, which would perhaps be most
appropriate here. The “kana” is different from the or­
dinary stop-gap of the regular haiku. It signifies the
poet’s acceptance of the melancholy fact of life and death,
abundance and paucity, nature and man. And this is all
contained in the word sukoshi. A few graves stand in a
line at the foot of the hill; the slope always receives the
afternoon sun. They have chosen a warm spot for the
last resting place of the dead. In life they worked and
talked together; now they sleep an eternal sleep side by
side. There is a mildness in the thought, the rhythm, the
warmth of the place which makes it akin, in mood and
treatment, to a verse from the Elegy:
Beneath those rugged elms, that yew tree’s shade
Where heaves the earth in many a mouldering heap,
Each in his narrow place forever laid,
The rude Forefathers of the hamlet sleep.
But the Japanese poem is not so funereal; we have
sunlight and warmth instead of darkness and gloom, yet
the feeling is deeper and keener because of the contrast,
and because of the word “few.” What is unexpressed
 ■

188 Santoka
and inexpressible is what is expressed by Becquer, the
Spanish Heine, in his poem Los Muerlos:
La picqueta al hombro,
el sepulturero,
cantando entre dientes,
i : se perdid a lo lejos.
La noche se entraba,
reinaba el silencio;
perdido en las sombras,
medit6 un momento:
“/ Dios Mio, que solos
se quedan los muertos!
This is what the Japanese poet does not say.

- 0 fy) W tt 1* ft fc tf ^
i
Ichi-nichi mono iwazu umi ni mukaeba shio michite kinu
I was silent all day:
Facing the sea,
: The tide came up.
* The poet was silent because there was nothing to say,
i no one to speak, no one to speak to. This is the silence
i: of nature, of the moon and the stars, of night. And it
is the silence that is in the thunder, in the tick of the
: in clock. This is why Blake says that
The roaring of lions ... the raging of the stormy
;; sea . . . are portions of eternity too great for the eye
=i
of man. ^
i The full brimming tide is felt to be, for all its crash
i
it
of waves, the same silent thing that has taken up its
abode within his heart.
i!m
 Chapter XXXIII
THE NEW HAIKU

Hekigodo, jjffgftil, was born in the 6th year of Meiji,

1873, of a Confucian father. He began to learn haiku from
Shiki in 1890 or 91 when a middle-school student, and
became the haiku selector of the Nihon Newspaper in 1902.
He published many articles on haiku, advocating new
kinds of haiku. He visited Europe and came back through
America, 1920-21. He now recommended that haiku should
become a short poem, somewhat like waka, lyrical in
style. He died at the age of sixty five in 1937. Hekigodo’s
own verses were at first in the traditional style, then
showed new tendencies, and at last became a kind of
“free verse.” An example of the first, written in 1907:

Hiza to Jiiza ni tsuki ga sashitaru suzushisa yo

Knee against knee
The moon was shining,—
And how cool it was!
An example of the last period, a verse written in 1921:

Mimoza no sakukoro ni kita mimoza wo ikeru

Just about the time mimosa were blooming,
Mimosa came,
And I arranged them.
 190 The New Haiku
This verse has twenty syllables, which seem to fall
into a 5, 7, 5, 3 pattern. Mimosa are not in the old
■
(season-word) dictionaries, so the season is not strongly
felt by the reader. The following give a perhaps unduly
favourable impression of his haiku.
l! * ft & & fc # fR <n> -7- ft m te <£> £
Daikon wo nita yumeshi no kodomotachi no naka ni iru
Boiled daikon for supper,
Sitting among the children.
ji
There is poverty, but there is happiness. We have
here Goldsmith and Crabbe combined, the gilt and the
gingerbread. The form is very long, but the translation
unusually short.

Konogoro tsuma naki yaoya na wo tsinnu negi too tsumu aruji

musume
Recently, the greengrocer’s wife being dead,
n Father and daughter load the greens,
Load the onions.
r •

ii This has 26 syllables, 10 more than the ordinary form.

Passing in front of the greengrocer’s, we see that the man
is carrying the vegetables from the shop to the cart, not
as before, helped by his wife, but by his daughter. This
Si is a good haiku, the length and rather cumbersome rhythm
suggesting the greengrocer and his robust daughter, and
the still more robust turnips and cabbages.

Xtc z £> — A fc: ft !) & & ft h

Mata tada no hitori ni narinu samidaren
The New Haiku 191
Once more I must become
Just me, myself,
In the falling late spring rain.
This modern haiku shows how strong the influence of
Basho still is.1 The poet has been sitting talking to the
other people at the inn late into the night, bathing in
that social affection which is so necessary for us. This
morning, however, he must become once more his own
separate, lonely self.

#1 fc T 0 T « ill
Ume ni orite yama sugizarishi
Coming down through the plum-blossoms,
I missed the mine.
The poet went to some mountain famous for its plum-
blossoms. He regrets not having seen the mine there with
its black-faced sweaty men and hideous heaps of slag
defacing the country-side. This haiku brings out the
honesty of the modern poet.

m fc fa ft tf m «: I® ti fc * bb fc
Ante ni tomareba ante wa haretaru tombo kana
Putting up at an inn because of rain,—
It cleared up:
The dragonflies!
If we think of this as a common experience on a
journey, putting up at an inn because it is raining, and
then the weather clearing up soon afterwards, this verse
has little or nothing in it. It is better to take the rain,
1 See Haiku, Vol. IV, p. 215.
mi

192 The New Haiku

the stopping at the inn, and the subsequent clearing up
of the weather as a mere preliminary for the dragonflies,
which would never have been seen, in their real nature
and meaning, except for this accident.
I! Jtfc <D jt K ^ \$ is. % #,* JUT' is
Kono miclii tii yoru hoka tva naki kareno kana
This road,
Across the withered moor,—
I It is all that God offers.
Across the vast plain goes the tiny traveller. For him
there is but one thing to do, to go walking on this lonely
road, either one way or the other.

Ishigaki ni karno fukiyosuru araslii kana

The winter storm
Blows the ducks all together
At the stone wall.
These ducks are perhaps in the moat of a castle, or on
in the small lake of a temple. The water is rippled, the
plumage of the birds is ruffled by the cold blast that
seems to have blown them into one place.

\u & x* ® trt & o t & m & g, m z

Yarna made mikan irozukinu kabe wo iro nurti
1!
The oranges paint their colour
Right up to the mountain top,
Dyeing the wall of the house.
The form is 4, 8, 7. This verse is a not altogether
unsuccessful attempt to do in words what the artist does
The New Ilaiku 193

with the brush. It has in addition some dynamic sweep

of movement which comes back to the static reflection
of the yellow colour in the white walls of the house.

M ft' b 3h m ft' b * <n> m. £ t> <#

Tsuta karami fuji karatni matsu no kaze sawagn
Vines wind over the pine tree,
Wistaria winds round,
And the breezes clamour there.
There is perhaps a suggestion here of the different
sounds that are made by the breezes in the needles and
leaves and stems and branches. In a poem of Hardy’s
we get the same thought of music, but expressed visually:
The tangled bine-stems scored the sky
Like strings from broken lyres.

& 7E ft ft* 0 Id V
Td hanabi otoshite nani mo nakari keri
Sounds,
Of far-off fireworks,
And that is all.
All the noise and excitement is here just a few distant
pops. Compare what Thoreau says in A Week on the
Concord and Merrimack Rivers:
There was a fire in Lowell, as we judged, this night,
and we saw the horizon blazing, and heard the distant
alarmbells, as it were a faint tinkling music borne to
these woods.
Seisensui, was born in 1884. After graduating
from Tokyo University, he preached and practised the new
 191 The New Haiku
1 kind of haiku together with Ilekigodo and Ippekiro. Me
wanted to free haiku of the shackles of 17 syllables and
ill a fixed season word, but at the same time deplored the
prevailing lack of glory, %, and of vigour, jj, in those
very verses. He has produced a great number of readable
i works urging and illustrating his views, which are no
•: doubt sound, but unfortunately neither his verses nor those
: of Hekigodo or Ippekiro come up to the standard they
'! set. Seisensui has such “haiku” as the following, written
in two lines, with a title:
£ t£ &
■
r$o - V'j tm tv'A
! r4o — V'j b r# L V' [ii
Echo
“Hey!” calls the lonely man.
I “Hey!” replies the lonely mountain.
- 0
!;
ii £ L -\b Jtb <n — 0
i - o <U
:
i
One Day
:. ,
:: I feel lonely;
Not one poetical thing have I see all day.
The original says, “wonderful thing.”
10 < n ft ffl X 5 &
Maruku tsuki ga dete itraraka ni kyd owaru
The round moon appearing,
ii ’ll Today came
To its beautiful end.
The New Ilaiku 195
Some days are perfect in the whole, and in all their
parts.
& !) X # T \C L T # cHfc tz L
Suwarite suna te ni shite suna no atatakashi

Sitting on the sand,

Holding it in my hand,
The sand is warm.
The warmth of the sand has something alive in it, as
though the earth were after all faintly human.
m& & tt i-1 b hx m jv x V' *
Clio ga did wo did ni torarete tonde iru

A butterfly is taken
By a butterfly from a butterfly,
And flutters along.
This is like the ten little nigger boys; first there were
three butterflies, now there is only one, flying alone.
^'^.XAzX ft £ X m X ft ift # fc b _h D
Ilibari tenjo dc naki daichi de naki nakinagara nobori

The lark sings in heaven,

Sings on earth,
Sings as it rises.
The rhythm of the original verse, a rather long one,
expresses the flight of the bird and its song.
± & ± m m ± *± x # < m sr <
Tsukushi tsukushi fuji wa okiku suso wo hikti

Horsetails! Horsetails!
With Mount Fuji greatly
Trailing its skirts!
 196 The New Haiku
The small things sprouting from the warm soil of
spring, together with the background of the great sweep
of Mount Fuji’s base.

Ippon-bashi too kodomo ga kuru inu ga kuru asa

■ ■

With morning comes

A child, then a dog
Across the log bridge.
There is no season word, but we feel it is summer.

Olti A <0 & ts m - I" t V if V' g

Yama toa hito no sumu kemuri hitosuji no aoi sora
A line of smoke rising,
Ill Someone is living there in the mountains,—
The blue sky.
: Blue smoke in a blue sky; no season word, but autumn
is the right time.

5 ? 6 5 b % X> b 9
i
Sora wo ayutnu rd-ro to tsuki hitori
h Pacing the sky,
Silvery and serene,
i|- The moon alone.
This reminds us of Freeman’s It ivas the lovely moon:
Calm she looked, yet pale with wonder,
i Sweet in unwonted thoughtfulness.

I
Yuki tnizu ni ftirtt mizu no naliakara furu
The New Haiku 197
Snow falls on the water,
It falls from inside the water.
Though this is a most interesting natural phenomenon,
and not merely an optical illusion, it is too uncommon for
haiku,—until we have seen it many times, and then it is
all right.

Jibuti no chawan ga aru ie ni modotte iru

Back home,
Where I have
My own bowl.
To eat with another’s bowl is like eating with another’s
false teeth.

Yamayuri ni sosogu taiu ya hototogisu

The mountain lilies
Are drenched with heavy rain;
A hototogisu sings.
There is a harmony here between the lilies wet with
the big drops of rain, and the fluid, “white” voice of the
hototogisu.

<D (O *5 <0 & t 4b' <0 $& <

Ftiyu no yo no ono ga kagc to onoga koto kaku
A winter evening;
Together with my own shadow,
Writing about myself.
This kind of objective treatment of self, an only ap-
!S
198 The New Haiku
parent subjectivity, is not uncommon in Chinese poetry.
\
When he is by himself, a man’s shadow makes him feel
i yet more keenly his loneliness:

At Kantan, on the Coldest

Night of the Year, Thinking of Home.
!
On my journey, I have come to the coldest day of
the year.1
Clasping my knees before the lamp, my shadow keeps
me company.
No doubt they sit there at home, and, as night
deepens,
They speak together of one who is far away.

JB £
i n w&$&4 m ist Tit & # #.
& # m *« as & & ns % £ it ff a.

Hakatsuchi fuminarasu okina ashiato no yiihi

The huge footprints
In the trodden-down earth
Of the grave in the evening.
Ti
This reminds us of the grave-digging scene in Hamlet.
,' The haiku however has a kind of crescendo or rather
widening element in it. The departed and all his glory

1I
have come to this mere six foot of earth, but its softness
I makes the foot-prints of the gravedigger larger than life-
;;
size, and in the rays of the evening sun they appear larger
3 i
still, and more significant. There is something also of
:
m 1 By the Lunar Calendar, about the 22nd of the 12th month.
The New Haiku 199
the feeling of Millet’s L’Angelas, and Victor Hugo’s Le
Semeur.

V\’ \2-f & <n> j‘r $ L h C o

llotokc wo shitizu mugi no ho no aosa shinjitsu
I believe in Buddha,
The green of the ears of the barley,
The absolute truth.

It is said that the author composed this when on a

pilgrimage for the repose of his wife, child, and mother.
There is no other religion.

* <o & & ft Z> l* if li A <r> m iv x ff <

Ki no me ntirem hodo wa hito no nurete yuku
The buds of the tree become wet;
So, and to the same degree,
People get wet.
The rain falls on the just buds and on the unjust people
walking in the rain.

h (£ 11 tc. h \t & & m # & mi <

Tampopo tampopo sunahama ni haru ga hiraku
Dandelions, dandelions!
On the sandy beach
Spring unfolds.
Many of Seisensui’s haiku are like a line of a children’s
song, for example, the next also:

09 g tf $ It If 09 P.S £ o ft 0 CSS
Higurashi tiakeba nakeba higurashi nakitsure higururu
 *‘ (

200 The New Haiku

The higurashi sing,

They sing, they sing together,
And night draws nigh.

The higurashi, the “day darkener,” is a cicada which

sings in the early evening (or early morning).

ffli n *. -c ig 5 t#on*&±
Umi miete tnichi hiroshi ho no mi wo hirou
■

The lake seen in the distance;

The road is wide:
Picking up magnolia fruit.
j From the distant expanse of shining water and the
wide white road, we come to these small red berries that
form in autumn after the white flowers have bloomed in
summer. The tree is called honoki or hogashiwa. It
grows to a great size in the deep mountains.
Hdsha, islJiL, born in 1885, wrote haiku from his high-
school days, but later leaned towards the Free Verse
School, and followed Seisensui. He had a
warm, affectionate disposition, and was respected by all.
He died in 1954.

. X~ B It

it
Mata ichinichi no hajimari ni otsuru konoha ari
One more day beginning;
There are leaves
Falling.

! There is a depth of grief here that does not belong to

personal loss or fear of death or even to a view of the
world as a thing of change and decay. It is deeper than
.
The New Haiku 201
this, for it springs from the very heart of man, which in
itself, in its own inner life, realizes that morning and
evening, life and death, budding and withering are one
thing,—which is? Which is the soul of that soul.

^ £ D Looi < ft L !B? if \L X fa

Yumari shitsutsu yoktt karcshi no ni oto tatenu
Urinating
On the withered waste,
It made a noise.

Standing with legs astride, and well-balanced, with all

the weight and energy in the lower part of the body, we
feel one with the earth we stand on. Making water is
an action which is part of the cycle of life. But beyond
this there is something peculiarly significant in the sound
of the water on the dry leaves, for it is not merely water,
but one’s own body in a liquid form which is causing
the sound.

Ilebi ga shinioru kataivara ni kodotno hanashi ori

The snake is dying:
Nearby,
Children are talking.

The deep meaning of this verse lies in the absence of

expressed or implied connection between the death of the
snake and the conversation of the children. The lack of
knowledge on this point, our deep eager interest in the
details of the killing of the snake, our desire to hear what
the children are saying, our sadistic gaze that returns
again and again to watch the writhing of the creature in
 202 The New Haiku

its death agony—these things are the poetry of a verse

which implies none of them.

9 co m s k m»n h t> ab 4 # &

/vm wo fukasa ni uma wa uma-dochi kao yoscnti
In the depths of the mist,
! The horses
1 : Nuzzle each other.
What gives meaning to this verse is the first line; the
rest is charming and sentimental, but goes no farther.
There is the warmth of nature, the close intimacy of all
■
things. But this by itself is insufficient. It needs the
loneliness, the unseen, the unknown; it needs the stoicism
of nature, its inconscience and remoteness to deepen the
1 animal feeling.
Hi
IdllcV'US $ t <F> ffi ts. D
Mazu mimi ni iru furusato no nagarc nari
What first struck the ear,—
The stream
Of my native village.
As the wanderer returns home after many years, he
‘ hears once again, (but with what a difference!) the voice
of his native village, the stream by which he played in
ah
i his childhood. It is first in time, but also first in eternity,
that is, in value and significance to him. It is the one
s: thing whose meaning he cannot express to another,—and
is; yet it is expressed in the above seventeen syllables. It
has the same meaning as the voice of Keats’ nightingale,
as the song of Wordsworth’s solitary reaper.
Ippekiro, —H®, was born in 1887, left the university
The New Haiku 203

half-way, and supported Ilekigodo in his new ideas about

haiku. In 1911 he proclaimed these new tendencies, and
published selections of haiku one after another. He died
in 1946. Ippekiro broke the 17 syllable form, and made
no use of season words, or, if he did, used such words
without giving the season the main place in the verse,
for example:
& X> o X % m <o ra ^ A o X * Ji tc V'
Omoikiri hashitte wakaba no yami e haitte mo niitai
I feel like rushing
Into the darkness
Of the young leaves!
Ippekiro wrote of his own verses: “Some people say
they (I#) are haiku, Some say they are not. As for myself
I don’t care what you call them. My poems ('£#), in my
idea, have a different standpoint from haiku so far, For
one thing I don’t care tuppence about the season-feeling.”
Ippekiro reminds us a little of Schumann in being valiant,
of the Henry Miller that Orwell admired for his manliness
and directness.
ifu? £ < m ± £ m ^ tc v
Mugi sei-sei Into ugoku kokudo yo-aketari
The barley is green:
The people of our country
On the move when it dawns.
This is the life of the farmers in nature, dignified by
the feeling of the history of the people as a people.

Kaicho no mure mori ni tsuku taisho kana

 204 The New Haiku
The sea-birds in a flock

ill Fly to the wood and alight there:

Ah, the heat!
Sea-gulls, or some other white birds, suddenly fly inland
to the woods, seeking the shade in this intense heat.
H
’
The colour of the birds, their number, their all perching
on (“sticking to”) the same tree, gives us the feeling of
excessive heat.
Ho t fc 5 a <D fr ti 6 t> !) i~ 5
Futatsu okitani lionoka naru hikari suru yoru no sucmono
11 Two pieces of crockery
Together, side by side,
Faintly gleaming.
j| ! Two pieces of china, a flower pot or a tea-cup (suemono)
are seen together in the twilight, each faintly reflecting
the light of candle or lamp.
g ^ tc h o & y t> fo h a* $£ ‘X \y t? V
Sora c tachinobori warcra ga takibi no kenturi
Rising up into the sky,
Our bonfire’s
Smoke.
.
11 The point of this verse seems to be in the word “our.”
The form emphasises the word “smoke” which thus rises
i up into a sky which becomes “our” sky.
Issekiro, —born in 1894, wrote haiku from his
V boyhood years, supported Seisensui, and then turned to
“proletarian” haiku. He was imprisoned for two and a
half years, after the Haiku Incident of 1941. After the
end of the War he worked for freedom and peace.
The New Haiku 205

A £ I# L 1$ o) gj b o /x D
Ilito wo horoseshi tana no kao shizuka nari umaya
The horse that killed a man,—
His face is meek and quiet
In the stable.
This verse reminds us of Lawrence’s St. Mawr, but
there the horse that injures two men is half-aware of his
misdeed:
His head was raised again, the eyes still starting from
their sockets, and a terrible guilty, ghost-like look on
his face. When Lewis drew a little nearer he twitched
and shrank away like a shaken steel spring, away,—
not to be touched. He seemed to be seeing legions of
ghosts, down the dark avenues of all the centuries
that have elapsed since the horse became subject to
man.
In the haiku, however, the horse is quite oblivious of
his crime.

Ima-slii ivaga hint ki no shiznkesa wo aogitari

The tree I am cutting down,—
As I look up,
How still it is!
Just as true loneliness has nothing to do with desiring
company, so true pathos is not an emotional perception
of weakness, but a feeling of the tender, delicate life of
a thing. Thus here, what strikes the woodman-poet is
not the destruction of beauty about to take place, not the
transitoriness of its life; it is not the so-called Buddhist
compassion that fills his heart, but a realization of its
I
!

if’ 206 The New Haiku

quiet core of life, not connected with its imminent fall
I! and death, and yet not unconnected with it. The tree
stands there for a moment, a great antenna, through which
the stillness of the universe is transmitted.

f:

.
:
ii
 Chapter XXXIV
THE SI IOWA ERA I

In the Hototogisu, in the 1st year of Shovva, 1926,

Kyoshi, the selector, had criticised the first three of the
following four poets, Shuoshi, Seishi, Seiho, and Suju,
saying, “Their verses appear to be perfectly objective,
but inside the verse there is some subjective element.
However, their verses are not a return to the lyrical style
of old haiku, but a new style that might be called ‘objec­
tive-lyrical haiku, » >» The following are examples of this
style by the three poets:
m <o * g < /HE * m -t m &m=F
No-ibara no mizuku kosame ya yotsude-ami
The wild roses,
Soaked in the light rain,
As if in a casting-net. Shu5shi

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Kaktirc-ya ni tsuyu ippai no akaza kana
A retired dwelling
Among the pig-weeds
Full of dew. Ssiho

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Taki-abi no matou mono nashi yo no shinju
Religious ablution in the waterfall:
The young tree stands there
In the evening, naked. Seishi
- " 1 I .

208 The Showa Era I

it!
: Seison, Wfctf, born in 1892, became a professor of en­
i :
gineering. He combined the Ilototogisu haiku, that of the
Four S’s, and Fusei. His haiku are described as easy and
healthy, a doubtful compliment.
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Tsurushi tarn inoshishi no mac ytiki ga furu
I Before the wild boar
Hanging there,
III! Snow falls.
It is odd. Wild boars are so poetical that even if they
are dead and hung up in the butcher’s shop, just a clod
,
i:
of meat, when snow falls they become once more some­
I1 thing of power and natural glory.
i
;
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Gaito no ura iva hi nariki meiji no yuki
The linings of the overcoats
'
Were scarlet;
The snow in the Meiji Period.
This is an interesting haiku, giving us the feeling that
even the snow was different in that age.
Suju, born in 1893, became a doctor, and began
to write haiku, encouraged by Shuoshi, learning from
Kyoshi. Shuoshi belonged to the Impressionistic School,
but Suju formed the rival Sketch School, nearer to that
of Kyoshi. His kind of verses received the nickname of
usa-nohne"haiku, (corresponding to Dr Johnson’s
“counting the stripes of the tulip,”) from the following
verse, which was thought by the Impressionists to be too
minute:
 The Shdwa Era I 209

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Kamo no me no tobi-tobi no hito-narabi
The yellow day-lily,
The buds sporadically
In a line.
Suju explained his attitude in making verses like this:
“When a scene comes before my eyes, I just look at it
until it forms a lucid impression in my mind, and then I
make a verse of this impression.” At the beginning of the
Shovva Era, he was known as one of the best poets of
the time. In the Hototogisu Kyoshi spoke of his style as
“perfectly real, simple, and natural,” and gave the follow­
ing verse as an example:

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Mizuo hiite hanaruru hitotsu uhinedori
The water-birds, afloat, asleep;
One draws a line on the water,
Separating itself from the others.

Hippareru ito massugu ya kabutomushi

The beetle;
The thread being pulled
Is straight.
A child has tied a thread to the big beetle, a kind of
stagbeetle, and wants to pull him around; the beetle does
not want to be pulled. The straightness of the thread
shows the struggle for existence.

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Ilanc watte tentdmushi no tobi izuru

E®
 '
210 The Sliowa Era I
A ladybird flies off,
Dividing her wings
Into two.
There is something odd and interesting about the
beautiful “split” wing-cases, which look as if they were
I made by somebody, though they were not,—or were they?

Kumo no ito hilo-suji yogiru yuri no mac

H
A line of spider’s thread
i Crosses in front of
A lily.
There is something aesthetically meaningful here, in
the contrast of the line of web and the circle of the lily,
and in that of the spirituality of the thread and the
grossness of the flower.
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Mata hitori toku no aslti wo kari hajimu
! :
Another
ii ■
!l Begins to cut reeds
In the distance.
All along the valley reeds are growing, and a few
reed-cutters are seen here and there in the distance. As
I thi poet gazes, yet another man is seen far away cutting
1
ths rushes. The poetry is in the “one more.”
i
u. rn m * V' * C is. 9
Gairo-ju no yorn mo ocliiba wo isogu nari
The trees of the avenue

ii Hasten the fall of leaves

Even at night.
The Showa Era / 211
This kind of animism is good. The hastening is in
the mind and in the trees, in man and in nature. This
verse expresses the feeling of inexorable time, the eternal
flux, seen here also under the arc-lamps of a city, as the
leaves seem to fall faster in their light.
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Zuka-zuka to kite odoriko ni sasayakeru
Without ceremony
He comes straight to the dancer.
And whispers something to her.
What is said may be a trifle, it may be a matter of
life and death, but the unceremoniousness too is that of
nature.
Yawa, %a={=, born in 1895, worked for thirty years in
the Stock Exchange. He learned haiku from Kyoshi. His
haiku are quiet and delicate appreciations of nature.
V' o <D It fc 1 5 T m & *IJ 3 A %
Itsu no yo ni nardte ashi too karu hito zo
These men cutting reeds,—
In what ancient world
Did they learn it?
There is a No play Ashikari, reed-cutting. It is
the beginning of winter; the water round the sand-banks
has fallen; the reeds are dry. Some men are cutting them
now, as every year. When they are tired they warm
themselves round a fire of cut reeds, a fire that burns
swiftly with little smoke, and needs replenishing often.
There is something primitive, not idyllic, but all the more
august and simple, something of ancient times in this
scene.
nr
!(!!!

212 The Shown Era I

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Kuzubito no omotc wo kogasu yo-dahi liana £

Torch-fishing at night:
It burns the faces
Of the men of Kuzu.
Kuzu is the name of a district in Yoshino. At the
dead of night, fishermen are seen in a deep valley, fishing
by the light of torches, their faces only being lit up in
an uncanny way, giving them a demoniac appearance.
There is a No play called Kuzu.
Takeji, StH, was born in 1896, and wrote haiku from
thirteen years of age. He was one of a group of “pro­
Mil letariat” poets.

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Tsuki no hikari nagare-hite ha wo ugokaseri
The beams of the moon,
i■ Flowing along,
Moved the leaves.
There is not a breath of air; all is silent and still.
Only the silver moonlight comes sliding down over every­
thing,—and the leaves stir a little, and are quiet again.
The moonlight has caused them to quiver and sway, ever
so slightly: this is the feeling, the intuition, the faith, the
flash of revelation,—but is it not only a sensory illusion?
i We live in two worlds, in more, it may be, but two at
least. When we say, “The night wind made the leaves
tremble,” we are asserting something whose meaning goes
beyond the mere words and their separate connotation,
and belongs to a world of flux and strain, nebulous, yet
of orderly beauty, dead, in the sense that it belongs to law.
 The Showa Era I 213

Even this world is beyond all words and symbols. But

when we say, “The moonlight swayed the leaves,” we
are in the divine, the creative world, alive and free, not
the world that is, but that which is evermore about to be.
t fhf to <' P, t nft Y)
Mizu tsumctashi oka aoshi higurashi nakeri
The water is cold,
The hills green:
A higurashi is crying.
The ear, the eye, the sense of touch are all stimulated
to the same end. The clear cold water, the clear green
of the hill, the hard clear note of the insect give an
aspect of nature which is not seasonal, but has its part in
every natural phenomenon, and is perceived most sharply
in the sudden cry of the higurashi, the nip of the stream,
the vividness of the green of the hill.

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liana wo osaete kunio ivataru kaze no atsuki hint
Bearing down on the flowers,
A cloud blown by the hot wind:
Midday.
“The flowers” means of course the cherry blossoms;
. it is a more than warm day of late spring. The poet
wishes to express the idea of “the heat and burden of the
day,” when the cherry flowers are in full bloom. In
harmony with the blossoms fully open are the greatest
warmth of the sun’s rays, the fullness of the great cloud,
and the heat of the enveloping wind. The poet’s own
sense of oppression is transferred, unconsciously, to the
flowers themselves, and theirs to him.
I 11
>

214 The Shotva Era /

Sit
- Fuyti no hi tnoyuru ham no tqkumashiki inu-ra
|!i
A winter day;
On the burning moor,
Some powerful-looking dogs.
The grass is brown and yellow, dry and brittle, ready
to burst into flame. Several huge, fierce-looking dogs are
running about, heads down, intent upon something. We
feel in this scene, not the cold deadness of winter, its
;
lifelessness, but the latent ferocity of heat in cold.
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! Yiihi yokozatna ni nagarurti sora no tombo tombo
■

The evening sun;

Flowing across the sky,
: Dragon-flies.
ill;
In the level rays of the sun dragon-flies are gliding
; backwards and forwards, their T-shaped forms accentuat­
!
ing the horizontal nature of their flight. This is all there
is in this poem, but the poet has expressed the feeling of
1 straightness, of layers, of banded clouds and lines of mist,
: the something geometrical in nature which among the
1
confusion and fortuitousness of the day is visible for a
iii few moments as night falls.
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Tsubalii kaide suteshi kojiki ga aruki-dashitari
Smelling a camellia flower,
The beggar threw it away,
And walked on.
The mystery here, the mind of the beggar, is as deep
The SJidwa Era I 215

and insoluble as that of the mind of a sheep or an ant,

or that of one’s dearest friend. What makes him bend
down and pick up the flower that lies, like himself,
despised and rejected of men, by the side of the road?
What makes him smell it, and what recollections of
childhood and youth does it raise? What deep indifference
and perception of the meaninglessness of all things is
it that causes him to throw it aside, and move on once
more in his purposeful walk from nowhere to nowhere?
Maugham says, speaking of the hero of Ashenden, The
British Agent:

He did nothing from morning to night but wander

at random, not with eye of a tourist who seeks for
what ought to be seen, not with the eye of a writer
who looks for his own, seeing in a sunset a melodious
phrase or in a face the inkling of a character, but
with that of the tramp to whom whatever happens is
absolute.

Seiho, born in 1899, had trouble with his ears.

He gave up his schooling upon the death of his brother.
He had learned haiku from his middle school days. Though
he had a strong subjective vein he joined the Hototogisu
School. He made use of a Manydshu vocabulary, and,
together with Shuoshi, Seishi, and Suju, became one of
the Four S’s of the time. Comparing the two, Kyoshi
said of Seishi, “He is the captive on the frontier,” and of
Seiho, “He sits at ease in the seat of the King of the
Country of Haiku.”

Natsukashi no jokuse no ame ya nehanzo

 i'i
216 The Shown Era I
1!
The Nirvana Picture;
The rain of this sordid world falls,—
i
M! How dear it is to us!
The picture of Buddha’s Entrance into Nirvana is hung
!
up in the temple on the anniversary of His death. Rain
: ■> falls outside in the world of illusion, but it is our world;
I our only world.
1

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Katsuragi no yama-futokoro ni ne-shaka kana
il
Buddha lying down,
I In the bosom
Of Mount Katsuragi.
!
The use of the word “bosom” reminds us of Words­
worth’s “in the bosom of the steady lake.”

i ;|
i
Ichi no ji ni tome ni nehan shi-tamaeru
The Buddha lies,
!! His eyes in a straight line,
Looking into infinity.
The eyes may seem shut, but they are half-open, as
though gazing into all the worlds of all time.
Kusatao, (Kusadao) ^Qf§, was born in 1901. He
studied German, then Japanese literature. He was fond
of Nietzsche, Strindberg, Dostoevski, Holderin, Chekov, and
became neurasthenic. When he was twenty nine years
old he visited Kyoshi, and entered the Tokyo University
Haiku Association. He opposed the Shinko Haiku group,
vigorously. However, he was investigated by
the police at the beginning of the war and stopped writing
The Showa Era I 217
until it ended. Ilis recent verses concern people’s state
of mind.

Tsuge no liana futatsu yorisoi nagare-kuru

Flowers of the box-tree

Come floating on the water,
In couples. jy-y
V*

Yake-ato ni nokoru tataki ya temari tsuku

On the concrete
Of the burnt-out house,
A child playing hand-ball.
In Europe from the middle of the 19th century, in
Japan from the end of it, one of the chief functions of
poetry was to digest modern things of scientific character.
In his famous picture, “Wind, Steam, Speed,” Turner does
this, but partly by means of his shortsightedness. The
whole picture is a kind of poetic blur. In the present
verse, the bombed-out house with only the cement flooring
that remains is lifted up into the realm of poetry by
means of the age-old ball-bouncing of the little girl. It
reminds us of one of Hardy’s best-known poems, The
Breaking of the Nations, which ends, after speaking of the
life of ordinary men and women:
War’s annals will cloud into night
Ere their story die.

Yuki koso chi no shio nare ya tune mashiro

11
|! j

218 The Showa Era l

■

: Courage
j Is the salt of the earth!
The plum-blossoms purely white.
This was composed when he was “called to the colours,”
which are not purely white. The poet uses the words of
Christ, Matthew 5, 13, to express his feeling of the power
mis and value of two things, human integrity and the white­
ness of the plum blossoms; they are seen to be what they
really are, two manifestations of one thing. Courage is
purely white. The plum-blossoms are the salt of the earth.
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Manryoku no naka ya ako no ha hae somurii
Among the myriad leaves of spring
My child has begun
To cut his teeth.
What is interesting about this rather unusual verse is
the contrast between the universal verdure of Nature and
this one child’s little front teeth. The common element
in them is the fact that both leaves and teeth are forms
||l; of growth. In any case this verse may be called a
! tour-de-force.
; ,
f !*.-j Tamamushi zareru tsuchikure dochi iva orokasa yo
; The-jewel insects copulating;
:
1 How dull, how stupid
These clods of earth!
This newness of subject is certainly very refreshing, and
the real interest of the poet is shown in the fact that he
wrote many verses on the tamamushi copulating, in which
The Shdwa Era / 219

he saw expressed the splendour and power of life just

as D. II. Lawrence did; for example:

Tamamushi zareru goshiki no osu to kin no mesu

The tamamushi copulating,
The five-coloured male
And the golden female.

In the former verse the poet looks at the lumps of

earth on which or by which the insects are fulfilling the
law of their being, and feels a kind of anger at their
helplessness and insentience.

ti&i&O 3- 7 3~ 7 t LX & ft
Shiro-tabi no chira-cliira to shite senro koyu
White tabi ✓**
Flicker across
The railroad crossing.
This seems purely a picture, a visual impression of a
woman’s white tabi (Japanese socks) as she crosses the
railway at some distance, yet there is something faintly
yet deeply significant in it.

fr < Ji <0 1
Yuku tuna no sc no fuyu-hizaslii Jiakobaruru
As the horse ambles along,
He carries on his back
The winter sunlight.

The horse is quite unconscious of the weak sunlight

rippling on his back, but none the less there is a deep
relation between them. The horse moves, and the sun-
 >!•: • i

220 The Shown Era I

light moves; the horse carries all that sunlight on his
ill
back, yet it is no burden to him whatever.
!
^ m * m ?& kt i3i < & 9 m d
Fwrw ywAt/ ya wci/'i w>a tdku nari ni fieri
,i . Snow falling;
.
The Meiji Era,—
i hi How far off it is!

SI
* ,
Watching the snow, his thoughts revert to the literature
and history of the Meiji period, and in the slow yet rapid
fall of the snow, its inevitability, its “destiny,” he feels
! how distant the things of the past, even the past of fifty
! years ago. The verse has the language and tone of waka
rather than haiku.
;• i

Koto ni hato oki hi ya sotsugyd su

Today I graduated;
i Round the school tower
i
Pigeons are many.
There is a medley of various faint emotions and
thoughts, somehow expressed in the gentle and charming
.
. doves that symbolise all the pleasant, precious memories
■
that remain in his bosom.
■

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Zu ivo furite mi too name-yosou tsiiki no neko
:! Flourishing his head around,
He licks himself sleek and smooth,
Hi jj The moonlight cat.

11 When a cat licks his back he makes great sweeps in

The Showa Era I 221

the air so as to get the full force of his rough tongue on

his fur. This particular cat is sitting in the light of the
moon, so that he glistens, and the dark fur shines as the
moonlight bathes it.

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Tomo mo yaya hyosatsu furitc alii ni sotnu
Both grown old,
My friend, and the door-plate too;
The beginning of autumn.

As he stands outside his friend’s house, he feels “the

sentiment of being” of autumn spread over everything.
Himself, his friend, the house, the very door-plate,—all
share in the inevitable old age of things.

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Machi-zora no tsubakurame nomi atarashi ya
Only the swallows
Are new
In the sky over the town.

When he returned to his native place, everything looked

old and dilapidated, except the swallows, now as fresh and
lively as when he was a child.

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Kamo wataru kagi mo cliiisaki tabi kaban
The wild ducks cross the sky;
The bag for the journey,
The key also small.

This was composed in Hokkaido, when travelling. The

wild ducks fly over the vast sky, a man under it, alone,
 '

222 The Shotva Era I

;
with a small travelling bag that has a yet tinier key.

Naki tomo kata ni te wo tiosttru goto aki hi nukushi

The autumn sun is warm,
in As though my dead friend
Had put his hand on my shoulder.
This friend was Itami Mansaku.
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i: lwashi-gutno koko issaiji chijo ?ii ari
{
Cirro-cumulus clouds;
Each and all things
p Are on this earth.
■■

God’s in his heaven, all’s right with the world.

H
Tane ntakcru mono no ashi-ato amaneshi ya
The footprints
Of the sower
■ ! Are everywhere.

! We must sow, not be sown; bless, not be blessed; give,

! ;; not receive.
!T.i *> * h
Akambo no shita no tsuyosa ya tobi tobn yuki
C
ill I ii How strong
': The baby’s tongue!
The flying, flying snow!
The baby’s mouth has an extraordinary sucking power
, I! for such a small creature. The snow that flies past the
The Slidwa Era I 223

window is so soft, yet has an equally extraordinary energy

of movement. The poet felt both at the same moment,
and the difference of the manifestation of force struck
his heart. r
Seishi, H born in 1901, studied law at the university,
and then entered a business firm. He has published many
collections of his verses. He and Shuoshi urged and
practised a new kind of haiku, in the words of
Seishi, “Verses with new materials, but deeply conceived.”
Seishi wrote many verse sequences, for example fifty four
haiku on Going to Mt. Aso, In 1941 he became
ill, and retired from his work. From this time his haiku
became simpler:

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Jujiro ni tateba izuko mo aki no knre
Standing at the cross-roads,
Everywhere the same
Autumn evening.

This seems based on a well-known waka. Seishi be­

lieved that haiku should have some quality of the Man-
ydshu in it.

Tanbai ya toki mukashi no kisha ni nori

Seeking
For plum blossoms,
Riding in an old, antiquated train.

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Mono kakite hajikaku ircba yuku shtgure
11 !

224 The Showa Era I

Writing something,
And then, standing on the verandah,
Ini
A passing shower.

! & ji k m % & < \> k &

if! Enten ni sogyo toku yori kitaru
In the scorching sunshine,
The figure of a monk
Coming in the distance.
i
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Karcsono ni mukaite kataki kara hamu
Facing the withered garden
;i
And putting on
A stiff collar.
:
y-i This is a (somewhat stiff) Japanese garden.
■

!!
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Umi ni dete kogarashi kaern tokoro nashi
I Coming to the sea,
The violent wintry wind
l Had nowhere to return to.
; ■

i
I , This is dramatic animism.

»!! Mi wo tsukete kani ga mizu nomti koto aware

The crab
Sinking into the water and drinking it
Is pathetic.
This is Pater’s idea in Marius the Epicurean, that all
The Showa Era I 225

tilings are a cause of lacrimae rerum, in being what

they are.

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Toshiyori no soshaku tsuzukii ya kabi no ie
The old chap
Keeps on chew, chew;
A mildewy house.

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Kirigirisu kono ie koku-koku furubitsutsu
With every chirp, chirp,
Of the cricket,
The house grows older.
This reminds us of Keats’s sonnet on The Grasshopper
and the Cricket, who
Nick the glad silent moments as they pass.
Koku-koku is the nicking.

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Waga ikeba issai no kani ashi-kakuru
As I walk along
Every one of the crabs
Hides in the rushes.
Sea crabs, different from land-crabs, are very timid and
hide at the slightest provocation. This haiku reminds us
of one of Clare’s “sonnets,” Summer Evening:
The frog, half-fearful, jumps across the path,
And little mouse that leaves its hole at eve
Nimbles with timid dread beneath the swath.
11
■

. The Shown Era 1

226

Saji namete ivarabe tanoshimo natsu-gdri

Licking the spoon,
v*
The little boy is in heaven;
li Shaved ice in summer.
1 The child, a little boy of seven or eight, sits eating
the cheap mixture of shaved ice and some sweet red
liquid. The spoon also is a cheap one, but he plays with
■"I
S the wet, cold mass, licks the spoon, finds it too cold, yet
II
i.
delicious, and eats it much more slowly and in a much
less business-like way than the adults.
m
Hoho ni hoho ni tsicyu no makuragi abura-jintu
f Step by step over them,
The railway sleepers
Oily and dewy.
In Japan, and Korea, as in America, but not in England,
! people often walk along the railway track. In the early
1 morning, after a heavy dew, the drops lie clear and shining
on the black oil with which the logs of wood are “pickled.”
This is seen by the eye, and also, as we walk on them in
uneasily regular stride, by the feet.
}•

li Omine ya susowa no michi wo sumi-guruma

ill Under the lofty peak,
On the road round the foot of it,
Hi A charcoal cart.
This has vastness with minuteness, like some Chinese
pictures, or Wordsworth’s landscapes.
The Showa Era I 227
n it n ?jR d r tir tc t >' & 6
Gekko iva korite chti ni todomareru
The moonlight,
Freezing in mid-air,
Stays there.

This verse is more psychological or sensational than

poetical, but it is an original expression of a far from
uncommon experience. The moon is in the sky, the
moonlight on the ground, but in the dark cold air between
the winter moonlight seems to be faintly and visibly
present, as though suspended in the air. When the weather
is cold and the ground is dark we get a feeling of the
materiality of the moonlight.
Fukio, who began his life in 1903, and died at
twenty eight in 1930, was attracted by the mind of the
Manydshu, and tried to introduce it into his verses. Before
him, some poets, especially Seishi, had already used words
and phrases from it, in order to infuse a new life into
haikai. After Fukio’s death, most modern poets were
influenced by him, as a reaction to the monotony of the
then fashionable objective style. The following verse was
highly valued by Kyoshi. The poet is thinking of his home:

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Anata naru yosame no kuzn no anata kana
Far off
The arrowroots, in the rain, in the night,
Far off.
The arrowroots he saw a few days ago, in his native
place, are still standing there in the darkness, in the rain,
far away.
 !!

228 The Shdwa Era /

£ co h tc 9 A 9 L % ■* ffi iVi
Ma no atari ama-ktidarishi did ya sakuru-su
Under my very eyes,
i A butterfly comes down from heaven
Onto the primrose.
1:1; Poetry is not purely objective. The poet is always
present, not conspicuous by his absence, but faintly suf­
fusing the object with his humanity. So in the above
verse, the poet feels as though he were Mary, and the
butterfly the angel announcing Good News.

& i}t M l- & < ti X fj £ Iti -f

Mugi-guruma uma ni okure te ugoki izu
The barley-cart
-
Moves
After the horse does.
The horse and the cart are not one; they are two
separate things. The horse begins to move; the cart does
■

not; then the cart moves.

A A o x P5 <D n 0 fc * # ft
: Iiito itte mon nokoritaru boshun liana
Someone entering,
The gate was left behind
In the late spring.

1! Late spring is peculiarly appropriate to this experience

of the solitariness, the resignedness, the egolessness of
things in their relation to human beings.

&8B 0 Jb fc *3 9 fc % to
11 Kangarasu ono ga hage no ae ni oritachinu
The Shoiva Era I 229
The mid-winter crow
Drops down and stands on
His own shadow.
The black crow in the air comes down and stands on
his black shadow, which is already there to receive him.

^ iz ft <d n
Furusato ya ishigaki shida ni ham no tsnki
In my old home,
The ferns growing in the stone wall
Under the spring moon.
Going back to one’s native place, nothing seems changed,
except perhaps older. And going out in the evening the
ferns growing between the stones of the mossy wall are
more tender and alive in the soft light of the spring moon.
The ferns, the moon, the season, the old home,—there is
almost too much sentimental accord.
Takashi, tifrL, born in 1906, the son of a No actor,
found his health would not permit him to take up his
father’s occupation, and turned to the world of haiku. In
the first year of Showa his verses appeared in the Hoto-
togisu. They are of a remarkable delicacy:

Tako no kage hashiri aratvaru yuki no ue

The shadow of the kite
Is seen hastening
Over the snow.

Karegiku to iisuten ni wa nasahe ari

 ' ' !' I.

I |i
230 The Shoiva Era I
if
To say, over one’s shoulder,
“They’re only withered chrysanthemums,”
Is too heartless.

fill ^ lir m <o hw < It & ± <'

In Stiiseti ya kokyo no gotoku liana wo hahagu
The narcissus flower,—
It is set on its stalk
I! !;
Like an old mirror.
The point of the resemblance between the narcissuses
■
and the old mirror (a polished metal one) is the way in
which the flower is set on its long stalk, reminding us of
the old Japanese mirror, a bronze one like the Chinese
mirror, on a kind of stand.

Ama-oto no liamusari ni keri mnslii no yado

At the Insect-Hermitage,
Their singing is overlapped
By the sound of rain.
Mushi no yado means a small dwelling where the
I
: singing of insects can be heard well. The voices of the
insects blend insensibly into the sound of the rain.

L friz
Tsuyukusa no ogameru gotoshi tsubomi liana
A day-flower,
Closing the petals
ill As if in prayer.
31 Gyosui, EItK, a poet of Osaka, was particularly pro-
The Showa Era I 231
vincial, with verses of the pathos of the lives of ordinary
people:

& m tij t & ^ £ m fc m -T' ft tf

Yomise dasu oroltasa rnune ni tsumako sumu
How foolish
To be a night-stall seller,
Thinking of one’s wife and children!
11
It

Chapter XXXV

THE SHOWA ERA II

II in
i ill Three poetesses, Hisajo, Shizunojo, and Yorie, made
their appearance in the world almost at the same time,
:
! : the middle of the Taisho Era. By the beginning of the
Showa Era, their styles had been settled. All three were
subjective, especially Shizunojo. The verses of Hisajo
were called “fresh-coloured and artificial,” and those of
i: Yorie “soft-coloured and refined.”

£ tc £ L X 111 H# & 15 U V' £ ^ !K lx.

Kodama shite yama-hototogisu hoshii mama
HI The mountain cuckoo,
Rousing the echoes
Just as he likes. Hisajo

9 X m it> \L o
Kanya kagami ni tsuma shizumarite tare ka tatsu
A cold winter night;
Someone stands before the mirror,
In the stillness of her skirt. Shizunojo

$5 0 @ K ffi CO £ to 5 /h & fr ft
Neko no me ni umi no iro aru koharu kana
In the eyes of the cat
Is the colour of the sea
Of a sunny day in winter. Yorie

Hisajo, 1890-1945, graduated from the (then) Girls

The Shdwa Era II 233

High School where she became the literary rival of Miyake

Yasuko. She married the artist Sugita Udai, and sent her
haiku to the Hototogisu, though her chief aim was to write
novels. She competed with Kijo, Dakotsu, Sekitei, and the
rest of them, and was the chief of a group of women
poets, Yorie, Midorijo, Seijo, Aoi, Shizunojo, and so on. Of
a passionate nature, she was always in love with somebody,
a woman with one thought in mind. She had many
enemies and no friends, at home and abroad. In 1936 her
name was removed from the Hototogisu list. She died
insane at the age of fifty five. After her death her power
as an author was gradually recognised.

Asagao ya nigori sometaru machi no sora

Morning-glories blooming,
The sky above the town
Beginning to be smoky.
Here we have the contrast between man and nature,
nature being dyed by man in the smoke that spoils yet
humanizes the morning sky, and the morning-glories that
stand in blissful contrast to it. The next verse is another
translation of the verse on the previous page.
IV' t
Kodatna shite yama-hototogisu hoshiimama
The hototogisu in the mountains,
Echoing, echoing,
Sing as they please.
There is something of the freedom of the birds here,
and their mountain life.
 [III!

234 The Showa Era II

Tabi Isugtt ya nora to mo narazu hydshi-zuma.

U
Wife of a teacher am I,
Mending his socks,
Not a Nora.
The onomatopoeia of the original is excellent.

ilk Murasa/tt no ktimo no ue naru temari-uta

The ball-bouncing song
Rises above and beyond
The purple clouds.

I i Though it is growing darker, the children still keep on

;
singing the ancient song, ever old, ever new, like the clouds
of evening.
■

I m fc ii 3 8 Jl/L tz
: I Usumono ni so torn tsuki no hadae kana
The moonlight,—
m Right through my thin clothes
To the very skin!
This is a haiku hardly possible to a man, unless it
were Shakespeare perhaps.
; i; Shizunojo, was born in 1887. Her name was
Shizuno, She became a teacher, and learned haiku
from Kyoshi from 1920, later than Hisajo and Kana jo,
writing at the same time as Teijo. She died in 1951. Her
work was characterised by a social, critical, enterprising
spirit. A well-known verse:
The Showa Era II 235

ffi # * 51 if 9 ft < ja £ ft & 33 *■

Mijikayo ya chichi-zeri naku ho wo sutcchimao ha

The short night:

This child crying for milk,—
Shall I get rid of it?
The Chinese characters used for the colloquial Japanese
add humour, and soften the sadism.
Yorie, J; \)yL, born in 1884, was beloved of Soseki and
Shiki. She entered Kyoshi’s School, and became one of
the leading women haiku writers of the time. Her verses
are exceedingly feminine and emotional about woman’s
daily life.

fA ix & * fc fi Jfc i'P $1 < tf A* 0

Waharc-ji ya tada manjushage saku bakari

A parting of the ways,

Manjusaka flowers
Blooming only.
The manjushage, also written “small red flower,”
is a very Buddhistic-looking wild flower that blooms in
September at the Autumn Equinox.
Midorijo, 3y.E i) born in 1886, learned haiku from
Kyoshi, and published her verses in the Hototogisu.

Aki no cho yama ni watashi ivo oki sarinu

A butterfly
Left me alone
In the autumn mountains.
“Wilt thou also leave me?”
 236 The Showa Erp II

ft J3L * ft hj ti JK (o W X Z>
Aki-kaze ya ishi isunda uma no ngohazaru
The autumn wind;
A horse, loaded with stones,
Doesn’t move.
The stoniness of the stones, the autumnality of the
wind, the stillness of the horse (with the pathos suppressed,
■
but not annihilated). This is haiku. Real haiku can never
be explained or commented on, except as giving horns to
a rabbit.
. ■

^ It b 515 £ T- K ft Q £ fa b \f It 0
Yatara kuru ho ni bnranko wo karage ken
Children come here
Too much;
I tie up the swing.
!
Children are very nice, and a swing is charming, but
at the same time__ Universalised, a good thing always
; has its bad side or, more profoundly, non-existence is better
' than existence.
!! j
Three more poetesses, Takako, Tatsuko, and Teijo, made
their appearance following that of the above three. Taka­
! n ko was like Hisajo. Tatsuko was objective, under the
i influence of Kyoshi. Teijo wrote homely verses.

'
a As i- a ft l 2J <o m * -m s
Shiramomo ni ireslii hasaki no tane wo warn
!; I Splitting open
i The stone of a white peach
With the edge of the blade. Takako
 !:i
liiil!!!
•1

l* ill
!
i
il

!!!i
i

::

-
The Shoiva Era II 237

m l z m a Lh o u n m & -7-
Ulsukushiki miiluri hashireri natsu-rydri
How beautiful
The green vegetables
In the dishes in summer! Tatsuko

ib b ft -7- <r> & 9$ O ft. <D I> £ z> rr lx

Aware ko no yosamu no toko no hikeba yoru
A cold night of autumn;
I draw the quilt over her,
And she snuggles up to me. Teijo

Takako, was born in 1899. She married in 1917

and lived in Kyushu. She learned haiku in connection
with Hisajo. She moved to Osaka and studied with Kyoshi
and Seishi, and then with the latter left the Hototogisu
and joined the Ashibi. In 1937 her husband died. She
lived in Nara during the war and after, and with Sanki,
and Seito, formed an association. In 1948,
together with Seishi, she left the Ashibi, and formed the
Tenro, JEA&. She is the chief woman writer of haiku in
Japan.

Iwasigunto ie dete sugtt ni ie wo kou

A mackerel sky
V When I go out,

o And I soon long for home.

U UK -5 3 ft # £> S
Sctsu-gen no kururu ?ii hi naki sort ni iru
, ill
Hi
238 The Showa Era II
1
The snowy moor;
It grows dark;
; I am in a sledge without a light.
This verse has a symbolism that must be kept latent.
Teijo, born in 1900, began to send haiku to the
Hototogisu at the age of eighteen. After her marriage she
' stopped writing, then began a movement of women’s haiku
as did Kyoshi’s daughter Tatsuko, Teijo’s haiku are
full of feeling, quite different from Hisajo’s masculinity.
■o < m T- <r> -ft- <d o * £ te Jg s £n L
Tsuku liago no oto no tsuzuki ni irugotoshi
; • The sound
■
. Of the shuttlecock hitting the battledore
Seems to continue.
It is New Year’s Day. The sky is blue and windless,
and the dry sharp sound has an invigorating effect on
the mind awakened to the newness of the new year. Like
the song of the Solitary Reaper, but for poetic-physical
I reasons rather than emotional ones,
The music in my heart I bore
Long after it was heard no more.

Kingyoya ni waga samidare no kasa shizuku

At the gold-fish seller’s,
1 My drops of early summer rain
. Fall from the umbrella.

Fuki-no-td otnoi-omoi no yu giteki

The Shotua Era II 239
Evening;
The spikes of rhubarb,
And the different train-whistles.
This is part of the life of people who live in a small
house near the railway. The sound of the trains and the
(lowers and vegetables in the garden are inseparably bound
together.
Tatsuko, m.-?-, born in 1903, was the second daughter
of Kyoshi. She travelled with her father in Manchuria
and Korea. She composed haiku from her twenty fourth
year, and competed poetically with Hisajo, Takako, and
other haiku poetesses. Kyoshi said of his daughter:
She receives the forms of nature simply, with a
tender heart, and makes them into haiku—this what I
felt on first reading her verses. I myself, following,
as I always have done, the Way of the Delineation of
Nature, have learned much from her,—not so much
from what she describes by her eye, but the mind with
which she sees it. This soft, direct heart makes mine,
old and inclining to stubbornness, return again to itself.
We cannot help thinking of the last lines of The
Sparrow's Nest:
She gave me eyes, she gave me ears;
And humble cares, and delicate fears;
A heart, the fountain of sweet tears;
And love, and thought, and joy.
New Haiku broke completely with one old tradition,
the sentiment proper to each season, to each bird, beast,
or flower, decided by generations of poets who added
their seal of approval. This had become a convention.
What was once an inward conviction was now an outward
 240 The Showa Era II
ii form, and therefore—-so said the advocates of New Haiku—
each individual poet must express his own particular and
personal impression of the “life” of the things that strike
him with poetical force. This idea gradually developed
;
into a theory that the only principle of haiku is the form
5, 7, 5, and that haiku may omit the season (word).
Sojo, was the first of the poets to maintain this
theory; a verse of his illustrating it:

PHTll
■I! Shiroki te ni konito riri to shite kuroshi
II
Ml In her white hand
: ! A Colt is black
in Valiantly
Sojo, born in 1901, was brought up in Korea. After
graduating from Tokyo University he entered an insurance
'f company. He became a selector of haiku for the Hototogisu
in 1924, when it was at its weakest. This was the era of
:
•I! The Four S’s, Shuoshi, Seishi, Seiho, Suju. By 1935 he
was writing verses of 17 syllables with no season word,
and haiku sequences. During the war he had nothing
| V’-
!h; to do with haiku, was burnt out three times and moved
ii: eight times. After the war he became ill, but published
many works.

HI
I
U-gan ni wa miezaru tsuma too sa-gan nite
I
I can’t see my wife
With my right eye,
But I can with my left.
Lying ill in bed, he feels grateful for his wife, and for
The Showa Em it 24i
having one good eye with which he can see her. “Man
is a social animal” is perhaps an understatement.

ff m ft lioilU® iff ts.

Ao-sudare kata-hazurc shite bojd kana

The green bamboo-blind

Hangs down half-off:
The feeling of evening.

The fact that the sudare is green shows that it is early

summer. The “evening feeling” is therefore not the
conventional melancholy of autumn but a particular one
related to summer, to the bamboo blind, and to its being
askew. It may be of the blind luxuriance, the excess of
nature, a vague feeling of distress at the fortuitous dis­
harmony and uncertainty of life.

ifc M A Z. % & b to 7* <dW\

Shungyd ya hi ot koso shirane kigi no ame

A spring dawn:
Rain falls on these trees and bushes;
No one knows of it.

It is early morning; fine rain is falling, and trickling

down the branches and trunks. Nobody else is up yet,
and the rain and the trees are his alone. They belong to
his world and no other. We may compare the following
waka by Sanuki:

to & *ifi W T te & ft & © # <»

.' 242 The Showa Era II

I My sleeve,
Like a rock in the offing
Unknown of men,
Unseen at low tide even,—
Ever undried.
By the 10th year of Showa, the whole of the haiku
■ world had been permeated by the idea of verses without
a season word. Most poets, except a few redou table op­
ponents, tended to accept the idea, but not many actually
put it into practice. One of these was Ilosaku, JHlfF, 1906—
1936, and the following verse was much appreciated:

I Shin-shin to hai aoki made unit no labi

Sailing over the sea,
Until our lungs feel
Blue and cool.
Hosaku was born in Kyushu, and became a teacher
!
of English in Okinawa. His verses are mu-hi haiku,
i! seasonless.

0 $ <D ± \c L * io <D & &

Hizakari no tsuchi ni sabishi ya ono ga kage
The noonday sun:
On the ground,
My shadow is lonely.
The very distinctness, the mechanical precision of the
shadow gives the poet a painful feeling, a feeling of fatal
limitation and inescapability which he describes, inade­
quately enough, by the word sabishi (lonely).
The Shdwa Era II 243

Zenjido, was born in 1889. In the 10th year

of Shdwa, he declared that haiku should be an animated
verse connected with life, and expanded the Ama-no-gawa,
Di<D)l|, a Kyushu magazine formerly of the Hototogisu
School, to produce verses without season words. Zenjido
also invented a form of haiku not restricted to the tradi­
tional 5, 7, 5 syllables, for example, one that is 7, 7, 5:

j& # roi u
Okujoen no sakura ni sora no ko ga marushi
On the roof-garden,
The sky-line rounds
The cherry blossoms.

Ilakko, £41, born in 1899, was one of the chief con­

tributors to Ama-no-gawa, and made verses concerning
the life of working people, especially those in coal-mines
and factories. Later, he separated from the magazine, and
published his own.

lh <D *T £ h 9 If & X *5 !) % <D ±

Yama no hi ivo chiribamete ori kiri no ue
The lights flickering
On the mist
Over the coal-mine

Seiho, bom in 1882, formerly of the Hototogisu,

became a leader of Dojo, ±_t, a modernist magazine, and
demanded realism in haiku, opposing the superficial sen­
sualism, surrealism, and so on. He was socialistic in spirit.

BmV T
Tent5 no jissen no chirigami ni aru fnyubi
 I 244 The Shown Era II

The winter sunbeams

in 11'! On the rough ten-sen paper
Displayed in a shop.

Kyoshi flatly rejected all this kind of thing, as did also

Shuoshi and Seishi. In the 10th year of Showa, Kyoshi
wrote the following in the Hototogisu:
Young men are apt to make new attempts even in
1
fi II ' j :
the world of haiku, but those who dare to violate the
mi proper form or the rule of the season word will destroy
the world of haiku, and should be debarred from it.
After he had established the Ashibi, Shuoshi
also wrote as follows:
11! I I am very sorry to see people stepping over the limit
of the right way of modernising haiku, that is, by
advocating the disuse of season words. Those who do
i. so are pitifully incompetent. And they are anyway a
III1 1 f nuisance!
Seishi was less critical of this activity than the other
two, but never joined in it. In the 10th year of Showa
i he wrote in the Ashibi:
The activity of the modernisation of haiku has now
overflowed its banks. Formerly I was in the van of it.
Now, I must hold my ground.
Ilakyo, born in 1913, who entered the school of
Ashibi at the age of nineteen, had a fresh, modern, and
- lyrical style.
i
in m « m fe s * s m & o *
Kan-tamago bara-iro saseru asa arinu
The Showa Era II 245
Shining roseate
An egg,
One winter morning.
In the 7th year of Showa the Ashibi gave its prize to
five haiku poets, including Utoshi, born 1891, a
doctor, and Soshu, §?$;, born 1910.

Wt lk<D it lift ft &0 tzt> 1b if !) UMT-

IJotarubi no hanareshi kusa no tawami keri
Deserted by
A firefly,
The grass bending down. Utoshi

m *4 flfc ft It b ft A* ft m *4 till S
Kato nagare hanabira nagare kato nagaru
Froglets floating away,
Petals of the cherry blossoms floating away,
Froglets float away. Utoshi

This must be in a stream near a rice-field, overhung

by cherry trees. The flowers are past their prime, and
have begun to drop their petals onto the water. Little
frogs come floating down the stream, all their legs ex­
tended; petals, in small groups, flow and eddy past; then
more little frogs in twos and threes.

m &
Shiosai ya haru no mugifu toa nobin to su
The sound of the waves;
The barley of spring
Is ready to sprout and grow. Soshu
 life
SI 246 The Showa Era II
Verse sequences had been popular from the beginning
I : of Showa. Shuoshi and Seishi were leaders of this style,
!; though there was a difference between the two. Shuoshi
. pi wanted the verses to be a unity, but Seishi insisted upon
the independent value of each verse. Hakuu, gM, a
I teacher, born in 1911, became ill in 1930, and died in 1936.
; He was a representative poet of verse sequences. The
title of the following is “A Change of Illness at Night.”
I {51 & t £ £> & to K Wi <T> M
I;
Nani ka fnto kokoro saivaginn kaya no tsaki

! I suddenly fear
■ Something will happen,—
The moon through the mosquito net.
: li
eg ifa. o ^ 5 oriio & *1/ &
Kakketsii no kaya nami utte hazusarenu

i
Taking down the mosquito net
As if the running sea
: Were stained with the blood I spat out.

& X> t o $ t £ V £ V> &

I Y\ 'I Mus/ii hitolsu naki ori sayuru ivaga inochi

Listening to the cry

Of a single cricket,
My life is clear.
Hi !t t> t O e J S: i
|i - Mushi hitotsii naki ori kusushi mada koztt yo
i
Listening to a single cricket,
i I reflect on the doctor
Not yet come.
i
The Shdwa Era II 247

Sanki, H5&, was born in 1890, and entered the Tokyo

University Haiku Group, and in 1940 was arrested. He
wrote “intellectual” verses in a unique and sensitive style.
The following verses are typical.

X&® ft 4= t fc 9 t ft 3
Taikan no aka-ushi to nari koe to naru
The great drought
Becomes a brown cow
And then becomes a moo.

There is some Zen in this verse. Three disparate things

are seen as one.
\
:u '> k £ tc ft »
Nika no gogo yaseshi shojo to mata narabu
An afternoon of Nika1
With the same skinny girl
At my side.

iS ft 11* L ft
Zfotfo amashi shizuka ni tomo no ski ivo ikaru
The grapes are sweet;
Silent anger
At the death of my friend.

Hakusen, born in 1913, was another of this intel­

lectual group arrested in 1940. His verses were at first
realistic, but later became more sensuous and fantastic-

* v t ft 11<> ft ic mw#m u
Kanna akashi yue ni fumikiri-ban kuroshi
A group of artists who hold periodical exhibitions.
 1 I.
1i
248 The Shown Era II

The canna are red,

So the crossing-watchman
Looks black.
After Hakusen, this group became too stylish, until
. they were called, “the group which lost their minds.”
i
If From the 12th year of Showa, haiku began to show
signs once more of mannerism, become fragmentary, and
'! use difficult and rhetorical expressions. Kusatao, a member
of the Hototogisu group, pointed out that it is difficult to
deal with thoughts and ideas in the limited form of haiku,
i I" and he emphasised the necessity of treating rather of
•i human life and humanity. Hakyo, born 1913, and
i Shuson, born 1905, of the Ashibi School, agreed with
■
i i this point of view, and established a new group of
ii humanists.
1
ts. TO#
' Okoshi-e no oloho wo korosu onna kana
A woman
1 Knocked out a man
i; illi In the okoshi-picture. i Kusatao

I
& n
: Shiiya hi to to moyuru omoi wo tsuru no tie
I
A crane carries
All my burning passion
Through the autumn night. Hakyo
■

1 Ii -f
Basil too machi 5ji no ham wo utagawazu
‘Cutting out figures from paper, and “standing them up”
with a light inside.
i
The Shoiua Era II 249
Waiting for the bus,
I have no doubt
As to the spring in the avenue.
This verse is justly famous, for it is Homer in modern
costume.

Ilaru hayate shihabane wa aete ide yuku mo

The spring hurricane,—
Yet the corpse
Ventures out.
However bad the weather, out goes the dead man to
the crematorium, to the grave. What courage we have
when we are dead! But no such parable is intended here.
wl flu & v it i) ^ $ & <o a* 1- £ & fit W
Kydshi nari kcri shnncho mo ga seki ni same
One spring morning
I awoke with a cough
To find myself a teacher. Shuson

This seems imitated from Byron.

Other humanists included Bon, Tomoji, and Bakunan.
Bon, born in 1910, was the chief member of a group
called Shakunage, He wrote verses that are fresh
but not eccentric:

Samtiki hi ni midorigo no me wa haniwa no me

Under the pale light
The infant’s eyes look hollow,
Like a haniwa’s.1 Bon
1 Ancient clay figurines.
 Ill" IIJ

250 The Shotoa Era II

Tomoji, born in 1906, was a poet and a novelist.

He expressed the pathos of the common people with
humour, but also with vigour and sturdiness.

fi tP X> o *
Yoi isakai hissori modorti ama no gawa
After drinking and quarrelling,
Going back silently,
Under the Milky Way.
r'i i
Bakunan, born in 1895, was an artless poet who
maintained his freshness and innocence. He lived for a
time in Mushakoji’s New Village, then became a disciple
1 of Dakotsu.

1 H ;!
® m z $> m a w g <r> ii d ^ p
Hiru nezame kamisori-togi no tori kcri
Waking from a nap,
. I hear the scissor-grinder1
Passing by.
Concerning the above poets, Shuson, one of them, said:
They are conservative enough to keep the right way
of tradition, but at the same time they are progressive
enough to criticise the way of modern haiku in the
matter of humanity.
War broke out between Japan and China in the 12th
. year of Showa, 1937, and war literature soon made its
appearance. Whether they liked it or not, haiku poets
were bound to be influenced by the war, one way or
another, and they had either to go along with it, or
resist it.
1 Literally, “razor-grinder.”
The Showa Era II 251
Sosei, 1^25, born in 1907, was the most remarkable of
the war poets, who also included Akio, and Toshi. Sosei
belonged to the Holotogisu School. He went to the front
as an artillery officer, and the front page of Holotogisu in
January of the 13th year of Showa was occupied with his
war verses. The following looks sentimental enough now,
but at the time it was thought to be wonderful:

£ £m » m * u 0 (cmm <
Tomo too haftiri namida seshi hi tii kari takaku
I buried my comrade
With tears today,
Wild geese flying high.
In July of the same year, the following appeared on
the front page:
B V' 0 & V' < $ T Z # 0 n & *
Omoi amata ikusa sum mi no oboroyo ya
A faint moonlit night;
All kinds of thoughts
On this field of battle.
He was invalided home, and eight years afterwards
died at the age of forty. One more verse, which shows
his invincible lyricism:
ti M »$> 5
Yoru no rai hosha ni hikarite tva kiyuru
A thunder-storm at night,
Flashing and darkening
On a gun-carriage.
Akio, born in 1900, went to the front in the 12th
252 The Shown Era II
year of Showa, his first verse being the following:

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Rakujitsu wo yukii rahujitsu wo yuku akai chutai
Marching into the sunset,
Into the sunset,—
The red army.
Toshi, born in 1912, who went to the front at
about the same time, was less fantastic than Akio. He
died in battle in 1944.

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Mime inukare natsii-yama ni hito ikin to sit
Shot through the chest,
A man tries to keep on living
In the summer mountains.
In proportion as the war became severer, the number
of war verses increased, until, oddly enough, the verses
became all the same, and lacked even the reality of the
war itself. Some verses still criticised the war, but by
the 16th year of Showa, when the Pacific War began, the
world of haikai was completely under the influence of the
power which agitated the people to fight and do nothing
else. In the 15th year of Showa, Sojo retired from the
position as the leader of modern haiku. This was a sign
of the suppression of haiku by war. From this year on,
many haiku poets were arrested one after another, the
chief names being Hakusen, Sanki, Tohei, and Seiho.
However such poets of traditional haiku as Kyoshi, Shuo-
shi, and Suju accommodated themselves to the situation.
Hakuyo devoted himself to studying haiku of the Genroku
The Showa Era II 253

Era, and continued to make verses in the old way, for

example:

lO ft l t 70 ft Z Z b (O JL o: W
Kegareshi to kegarezaru to no natsu no cho
Butterflies in summer,
Spotted ones,
And unspotted ones.
The war ended in the 20th year of Shdwa, and all sorts
of cultural activities began to revive, and poets wanted
to write again, but material and spiritual problems op­
pressed them, and there were even articles which ques­
tioned the value of haiku, and asked whether it was really
a first-class literature or not. The general tendency of
haiku after the war has been to knit closer haiku and
ordinary life. This had already been begun before the
war, but after the war, not only the relations of man to
nature, but the purely human trials and troubles have
been expressed in haiku. Especially haiku on ill-health
have increased greatly. An example by Hakyo:

Shiroki te no bydsha bakari no ochiba taki

The white hands
Of the invalids
Round the bonfire of fallen leaves.
Hakyo, wrote haiku when yet a middle-school boy.
Later, he left the Hototogisu and entered the Ashibi School.
He became ill in 1945. He has published many collections
of his verses, which are young and fresh.
 .
■

' ii
:

-i:
|
Chapter XXXVI
MODERN POETS I
.
\\m
!! ;
Shuoshi, born in 1892, graduated from the
medical department of Tokyo University, and became a
doctor with his own practice, but in 1953 he gave it up
■ completely, and devoted himself to haiku. Already in 1919
he was learning haiku, and afterwards studied waka also.
Hi He has published about sixty books of haiku and haiku
: criticism. His verses have a romantic flavour, but as a
! characteristic of the Showa Era (from 1926) his verses do
not deal with his daily life as do the haiku of the Taisho
1 Era, those of Kijo, Suiha, and so on.
;';
i; Man-jaku no kazan ni mnkai michi tsuznkcri
\i\ :
The path towards
li The ten-thousand-foot summer mountains
Goes on and on.
It is such a small, narrow path, yet it leads to an
infinity and eternity of sky and earth.

Tsnbo ni shite miyama no ho no liana hiraku

Putting it in a vase,
The flower of the deep mountains, the magnolia,
Is blooming.
To be able to bring back from some remote region a
 Modern Poets I 255

plant or living herb is a wonderful thing. Together with

it we have brought the spirit of the place in the silent
life of a flower. We feel for a moment the indiscriminate
friendliness of nature, a purpose beyond mere environment.
|1 ^0^(01^ ft
Kutva no ha no tern ni taeyuku kisei liana
On the way back to my native place,
Bearing the blaze of the sun
On the leaves of the mulberry trees.
The poet is returning to his native village after a long
absence. The mulberry fields along the road, dusty as
always, reflect the light of the sun, which shines too warm
upon him, yet he does not slacken his step.

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Natsukaslii ya kisei no basha ni yama no cho
A feeling of longing,
Going back my native place in the omnibus,—
A mountain butterfly.
On the way home to his native place, in the same old
carriage, with the same old driver and horse, he sits
gazing out over the well-known scene. A butterfly flutters
into the carriage, the same kind he had known as a child
when he wandered over the hills. Then it was hardly
noted, but now it has an almost superstitious significance,
and is both a symbol and an object of his longing for the
house where he was born.

t> fr V' <D % fc tf t> X L O ft 3

Waga inoclii kiku ni mukaitc shuuka naru

I
 j
i ■:
256 Modern Poets 1

Facing the chrysanthemum,

My whole existence
. Is still.
; Ij In this verse, the chrysanthemum and the poet face
:i each other, and each appears as a form of existence.
i
Stillness does not exist as such; it exists here as a man,
there as a flower. The stillness of both is not a lack of
movement only. There is a self-concentration of a relaxed
: ,i
kind together with a perfection of relation to the outside
5 world. Other verses on the same subject by Shuoshi are
! ■. the following:

Waga inochi sabishiku kiku iva uruwashiki

My self is lonely:
1 The chrysanthemum
Beautiful.

;; Here there is a painful contrast between the poet and

the chrysanthemum. The flower knows no sadness, human
beings no perfect beauty.

D fc <D & H? <

Isu yosete ltiku no kaori ni mono wo kaku
:
Drawing my chair near them,
I was writing
s In the scent of the chrysanthemums.
A verse nearer to the original verse:
! s

Tsukarcte wa otnou koto nashi kiku no mac

Modern Poets 1 257
Worn out,
Before the chrysanthemums
I have no thoughts.

Wj * tb * fc m C & <D * *
Kitsutsuki ya ochiba too isogu tnaki no kigi
The woodpecker
Hastens the falling leaves
Of the trees in the meadow.
The Japanese original has two opposite onomatopoeic
effects, that of the hard kitsutsuki and tnaki no kigi, and
the soft ochiba wo isogu. The English translation is with­
out this contrast. “Hastens the falling leaves” would be
explained by most commentators as a figure of speech, or
at best a subjective expression, but the realm of haiku,
of poetry, is one in which this is a straightforward and
sober statement of fact.
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Ashibi saka kondo no to ni ivaga furenu.
I touched the door
Of the Golden Temple,
Where alpine roses were blooming.
The author says, of this verse, that he does not
remember what temple this was. The Kondo is the
Hall where the image of the chief object of worship is
enshrined.
Aro, was born in 1879 and died in 1951. After
graduating from the university, like so many other haiku
poets he entered a newspaper office, where he stayed for
more than ten years. He learned haiku of the Basho
 25S Modern Poets I

School from his primary school days. For a while he gave

up haiku, then, becoming ill, he returned to it, and created
a new School, Shakunage, #•{$, which took up an inter­
mediate position between the conservative school of Shiki
and Kyoshi, and the revolutionary school of Ilekigodo and
Seisensui. He wrote that his school was in matter the
(poetical) experiences of the (Japanese) people of the time,
ip in form the old 17 syllables with a season word. Aro did
not think that haiku was merely an art, but that it ex­
pressed makoto, the truth we create in living with energy,
!1
seeking something. The way of haiku is the Way for
I human beings, He thought that the season
: (word) was an entrance into Nature itself, but even without
the word the season could and should be felt. The 17
syllables could be (a little) more or less if the rhythm
demanded it. Aro travelled all over Japan, and there is
often something vast and mysterious at the back of his
I verses:
;
: Doti'i % i) Is W <o
Hiyodori no sore kiri nakazn ynki no knre

I A bulbul cried,
And cried no more:
: M Snow fell through the dusk.

; See Haiku, Vol. IV, page 258.

; 5
i
:
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! Kogiidete toki kokoro ya mushi no koe
Rowing off,
My heart seems far away:
The voices of insects.

*
 Modern Poets I 259
This is a verse we would expect to find in A Week
on the Concord.

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Ki yori hi ni kayoeru kazc no ham asaki
Spring is yet without depth,
Only the wind travelling
From tree to tree.
The onomatopoeia of this, with the five k's, gives us
a kind of feeling, at the same time suggesting
coldness.

pit* & -7- co if ± mm W-

Ilolaru yobti ko no knbitakc no kawaragusa
The child calling the fireflies
Is the same height
As the river-bed grasses.
It is strange how nature “leads us gently on”

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Miyama naru kotori no michi no hizashi yoku
The sunlight
On the path of the birds
Deep in the mountains.

0. * & * fc ^ < & 5 55 0 III

Knsahara ya yo-yo ni koku naru amanogawa
Above the grassy moor
Every night brighter,
The Milky Way.

[t
II

h!
;
260 Modern Poets 1
ns & ± 5 ai * -Ur -c * * ft1! » ®
Ktiraki yori nanii yosete hnru hama-suzumi
Cooling on the beach,
■ !

Waves come surging

■
Out from the darkness.
' This verse has some grandeur, but not too much; it
has mystery, without affectation; it has the human note,
j! hut not too strong.
; i
32 ^ij !) <o < x 0 b -f ill 'b #
mI Kaya-kari no kaknte hikurasu yama koharn
Cutting miscanthus,
Today draws to its close:
Indian summer in the mountains.

! -tit v %> x ifE h v < %-<d m

Sugari-ite kusa to kare-yuku fuyn no hae
Clinging onto the grass,
And withering with it,
The winter fly.
Rinka, born in 1904, engaged in both business
and engineering. He became a pupil of Aro, and then the
editor of the magazine Haiku.

R A 2£ © 5 L 5 t £ \t ts. b
Rokngatsu-kazc halta no ushiro mo kage wa nashi
The June breeze:
No shadow of anyone
Behind the grave.
There is sunshine and warmth, green grass in the
Modern Poets I 261
distance, blue sky overhead. And round the grave no
dark shadow, no shadow of death, no mourner is seen.
This verse reminds us of Thoreau’s words on the death
of his brother:
The same everlasting serenity will appear in this face
of God, and we will not be sorrowful, if He is not.
L 6 fc % o
Tsuyti mitsnme oreba ushiro ni tsuma mo tatsu
The rainy season;
I gaze out at the rain,
My wife standing behind me.
This is the attitude of the Western poet. D. H. Lawrence
said he could do nothing without a woman behind him.
It is Dorothy and William and the glow-worm.
to £ h & b 22 £ M b X # ft
Ao-ao to sora wo nokoshite cho wakarc
The butterflies part,
And leave the sky
All its blueness.
One thing must die that another may live.
CO m fc &
Saishi-ra no negoro ya tsuki no eki ni tatsu
I stand here
On the moon-lit station platform,
About the time my wife and child go to bed.
Place and time are two different worlds.

Chichi no ki no ytiki furitsumoru sumi-dawara

 262 Modern Poets I
Snow falls and lies
On the charcoal sacks;
The anniversary of my father’s death.
There is something peculiarly appropriate to his father’s
I: ill death-day in the white snow on the topmost bales of
black charcoal, which is imagined rather than seen.
i|s| Seisetsu, Hit, was born in 1871, and died in 1917.
t Together with Shachiku, Rimpu, E&M, and others,
III
:• he started the Tsukubakai, a Tokyo University group
I! which was academic, and, from Shiki’s point of view, half­
!
■
hearted, and made various useful collections such as Haiku
Taikan,
'
; .• ft
Tera arete nio ni semaru wakaba kana
The temple ruined,
The young leaves are overwhelming
The Deva Kings.
As religion grows weaker, Nature becomes stronger,
and this is brought out in the “attack” by the young
leaves on the two giant Nio that guard the entrance gate
to the temple.

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Namako namako nanji jobutsu shite nan no hotoke
Sea-slug, sea-slug,
What kind of Buddha
Will you turn into?
This is in the line of Issa.
Kijo, Jwas born in 1867 and died in 1938. He
Modern Poets I 263
became a pupil of Shiki, and assisted him in the publica­
tion of the Hototogisu, and, with Kyoshi, Meisetsu, Suiha,
7klB, Seiho and others, revived the drooping haikai world.
Otsuji said that after Basho and Issa, few poets really
portrayed the (painful) circumstances of life as did Kijo.
Kijo himself said that we must grasp the realities of life
and express them, however disagreeable they may be,—
indeed, in so far as they are disagreeable, so that things
and ourselves are undivided, —1jx\. This sort of thing,
however, is easier said than done, as the following ex­
amples will show.

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Nenriki no yurumeba shinuru taisho katia
If the will weakens
You will die,
In this intense heat.

Nenriki here means something like faith, belief in one’s

own power to resist.

<D ® B < % V' X h It ft ft 9

Taka no tsura kibishiku oite aware nari
The pathos
Of the eagle’s visage,
Stern in its old age.

This seems to have the meaning of Hodgson’s “See

an old unhappy bull.”

m n * - 5 - 5 t *x < & <o a

Zansetsu ya go-go to fuku tnatsu no kaze
 H
;! Modern Poets 1
264
i
3* i
Snow remaining,
The wind roars
In the pine trees.
Nature never lets us forget her power. Blake says in
Proverbs of Hell that such things “are portions of eternity,
too great for the eye of man.”
it
S! Mihotoke no o-kao no shimi ya aki no amc
The stains on the face
Of the World-Honoured-One
:
Are the autumn rain.

!
Japanese Buddhism has a softness different from the
■)

Indian sentimentality and holiness.

U !
s /h & £ <0 m ^ i* fc 3K T Jg 9 &
Kotori konogoro oto mo sasezu ni kite orinu

I Recently,
Small birds
Come noiselessly.
Ij ■
1
i
t
It is late autumn. The poet opens the sliding paper
door and sees several sparrows hopping under the trees,
not as they did in the summer or early autumn, but with
j: r something of the sadness, quietness, and loneliness of the
season.
f!i!:
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•1 Ta no knro ni neko no tsume togu tsubame kai\a
The swallows
!
Are whetting the cat’s claws
; On the rice-field path.

! i
Modern Poets I 265

Every thing is the cause and the effect of every other

thing.

^ a C U$ k b Ml W /}> k
Hyo haretc liatsuzen to aril sanga kam
The hailstorm cleared up,
And hills and rivers
Lie stretched out.

The violence of the hailstorm that has just passed

brings out sharply the extent of distant mountain ranges
and winding streams.

O wo futte yorokobu uma ya tsuyu no aki

Swishing his tail,
How the horse is enjoying himself!
Dews of autumn.
There is something in the sound of the tail of the
horse which suggests the dew, and the delight of the
horse in the cool and juicy grass.

b<£
Izumi waku ya tokidoki takakii fuki-agum
The fountain is playing;
At times, it spurts up
Still higher.

The poetic point of this lies in the unknowability of

why the water suddenly goes higher. The lack of know­
ledge of the cause suggests the causelessness, that is, the
poetry of the fountain.
 1
I

iilli
5!l
!!!
266 Modern Poets I

lit Tt- ffli 5 O *> t P.S i> t T I 5 It D

Semi-tori no jiji to nakashitc tori kcri
. i I;
“1 : Ii :
The cicada catcher,
Making it buzz,
Passes by.
.
I?!
rji
!
“Making it buzz” does not mean that the boy purposely
annoys the cicada, but that it buzzes because it is being
held by him.
.
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HIp i
il
lkikaioari shinikawari shite utsu ta kana
Dying and living,
Hi Living and dying,
? Tilling the soil.

i || i Born from the earth, living on the earth, dying in the

earth,—this is the silent life of the farmer. The blood
i and tears of their ancestors has lattened the land; they
i; i
do not begrudge their own.
:
*
& m n h a iv m. m * » s u
i! Yase-uma no ahare-kigen ya aki takashi

h 1
i :
The scraggy horse
Is pathetically good-tempered;
High autumn.
:
The thinness of the raw-boned horse brings out, in­
versely, the unquenchableness of the spirit of life, and
■ ;
, . the beauty and grace of autumn.
.

Samidare ya okiagaritaru ncnashi-gusa

: \
Modern Poets I 267

In the summer rains

A cut-root grass
Is lifting itself up.
There is expressed here the power of nature, the power
of life, and also through this the meaning of the season.
We feel that “little more” which makes the poet see
what we only see. Energy and courage are prime neces­
sities for the poet.
Mokkoku, was born in 1889, and became a
journalist. He was a disciple of Kycshi, and published
verses in the Hototogisu. He is not famous, and many of
his verses are somewhat conventional, but sometimes they
have an unusual power and scope.

Akisame ya hishaku shizunde kusa-shimizii

Autumn rain:
A ladle sunk in the grass
Under the clear water.
The haiku poet is particularly apt to see the significance
of slight, out-of-the-way things, especially when they are
in the wrong place. The “wrongness of place” brings out
unexpected meanings.

hit V tc Z> E3 V # <D M v> sg a* ft

Agaritaru yotsude no tsuki no shizuku kana
Moon-drops
From the scoop-net
Just lifted up.
The four-armed scoop-net has just been raised from
 268 Modern Poets I
!
ill the water. The drops of water fall from the net in the

13 moonlight. The moonlight itself falls from the net into

the sea.
J\ <D 10 CO 1C fr s 5 $ ft fj> ts.
Tsuki no mo no koztie ni kakaru rakka kana
111!!!’
■ The petals scatter and fall
j From those branches
■
. Across the face of the moon.
The virtue of this haiku is its blending, in sound and
in image, the moon and the branches and the falling
ill flowers.
SO <P> IM. 31 L hi Ul ~k V' ts. 3
Umi no haze tsuyostii natsu-yama di nartt
The wind from the lake
Is powerful,
The mountains enormous.
This verse expresses the expansiveness of the summer
season.

I Hatsu kochi ya nami ni asoberu matsufugurx

The first East Wind,—
: A pine-cone plays
In the waves.
I! The onomatopoeia of nami ni asoberu matsufuguri, the
bobbing up and down of the cone, is noteworthy, and
S contrasts with hatsukochi, the breathing of the wind.
*T tb % & ft <D *
Chochin wo oku ya hi asobu haru no mizu
i

!i
Modem Poets I 269
Putting the lantern down,
The light plays
With the water of spring.
We may feel here even, though the poet may not, how
separate we are from things, and how close things are
to one another.

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Chikugo-gawa okihu magari kareno kana
The River Chikugo
Turns greatly
Over the withered moor.
The Chikugo is the longest river in Kyushu, and flows
through the great Tsukushi Plain. The turning of a large
river gives us a feeling of the power of nature, especially
in winter, when everything is bare and bleak.

F £ DR X J] — o t$> < W <n 1%

To wo akctc tsuki hitotsu yiiku yuki no hara
Opening the door,
A moon goes
Above the snowy plain.
This is a haiku of movement, the door and the moon;
and of emptiness, the windy sky and the snowy fields.

£F<
Karikitra wa ozuktyo nari neru to sen
It is great moon-light night
Over the chase:
I will go to bed now.
 i ! 270 Modern Poets I
This is a sort of Hemingway verse, too manly for haiku,
i! but not for poetry.
!
Takeo, was born in 1908, and became a lecturer
i
on Japanese literature, and a disciple of Kyoshi. He
learned also from Sekitei and Shuoshi. He writes strong
and modern verses.
ii m & T& c
Koto taete rakka no sliirosa mune wo sugu
■ 'i
The talking ceases,
:i And the whiteness of the falling petals
'•i
I Passes into my heart.
|i Talking is like toothache, nice when it stops. White­
ness is the food of the soul.

■
m. m m x Dii& # co & z
Jinrd no mune yori hibari naki-noboru
From the heart
Weary of noise and dust
A lark rises singing.
.
Sometimes we feel that Buddhism is right, everything
; is in the mind.
< * * © * fc#6 k
Haru-higata ikitru mono mina sunairo ni
Low tide in spring:
Every living thing
Is sand-coloured.
By the sea, “Spring goeth all in brown.”

Sakeme yori zakuro ma/utatsu na to wakatan

Modem Poets 1 271
I will share
This pomegranate with you,
Splitting it at the seam.
This is a love poem in the ancient style, such as might
come in Homer.

ft <o fL m a n m rn ic
Aki no nshi chibusa no hoka ion shikkoku ni
The cow in autumn,—
Jet-black,
Except for the udders.
What is interesting and important in this apparently
matter-of-fact verse is the appropriateness of the season,
when the sky is very high and blue.

Hori hatcte aki-zora fukaki saka kudaru

After the funeral,
I go down the slope
Under the deep autumn sky.

The earth is life, the sky is death.

o fii 'S.

Umi no hi e ondori sakcbti iki kcburase

To the sun rising over the sea,
A cock cries,
Its breath smoking.
This verse belongs to New Year’s Day, and makes a
symphony in red.
 r
ill
;! 272 Modern Poets I
i!
& i® it r & * n nut
PI!I Taki harcte yo-yo no gckko iiva ni shiinu

'! i The waterfall dries up,

And the moonlight, night by night,
lin
Pllill Soaks into the rocks.

i
Every night the water is less, the sounds softer, the
; moonlight colder and more penetrating.
Bosha, born in 1900, intended to become an oil
M painter, but gave it up and entered the school of Kyoshi.
; His verses have a soul-seeking objectivity together with
a keen sensibility, a pantheistic point of view with a
genius for metaphor. He died in 1941, and these and
! other haiku written during and about his illness, are some
i! of the best in the world.

Mm & £ T ft \c fc V fc tf 9
Kusatsumi no oeru ko ishi ni nari ni keri

; The woman plucking herbs,

The baby she carries on her back
Is becoming a stone.
The mother loves the baby, but weight is weight. Love
makes the world go round, but a sleeping baby on the
i1 back is like a heavy stone tied there.

Iki-uma no mi wo daikon de uzume keri

The body of the living horse,
Smothered and buried
In great radishes.
If we have reason to mourn when we see what man

.... li
Modern Poels 1 273
lias made of man, we have even greater reason to grieve
in the case of animals. In this verse the poet has ex­
pressed his compassionate feelings by the simple expression
iki-uma, “living horse.”

Mori wo dele hanayome ktiru yo tsuki no nxichi

Out of the forest,
A bride coming!
The moonlit road.

This has a fairy-tale flavour about it, especially when

we picture the Japanese bride with her white head-dress,
on a led horse perhaps, with a lantern dimmed by the
moonlight.

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Mimizu naku rokuharamitsu-ji shin no yatni
Worms crying
By a Six-Paramita Temple
In the darkest night.

From olden times, many insects, bag worms, tortoises,

and shell-fish were supposed to cry, though in fact they
are and always have been quite silent,—as far as human
ears are concerned. The Six Paramitas, or means of
attaining Nirvana are: Dana, charity; sila, moral conduct;
ksanti, patience; virya, energy; dhyana (=zen) contempla­
tion; pragna, knowledge. This strangely-named temple,
the worms crying outside, and the darkness that could be
felt,—these are well harmonised.

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Hd-sange sunawachi shirenti yitkue kana
 274 Modern Poets 1
; The magnolia lets fall its flowers:
! And no one knows
Where they have gone.
What has come out of nothing has gone into nothing,
•—and yet how is such a thing possible? The poet seems to
have been extraordinarily attached to this tree, the ho,
which in May has yellowish-white nine-petalled flowers,
with a very strong sweet smell. In another verse he says,
showing his feeling of its far-off nearness, his dependence
upon it:
: 35 ip- T ft re &- < T fc & 1-
Ama ga shita ho no liana saku sliita ni fnsu

Lying under Heaven,

Under the magnolia tree
With its blooming flowers!

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Zcmniai no no no ji bahari no jalihbdo
:
The flowering fern fronds
Are all the shape of CD,
; An earthly paradise.
The original uses <D, no, of, four times, and there is
perhaps some connection between the circular shape (a
symbol of perfection and eternity) and the heaven that
they are. “Earthly” paradise is not in the original, but
emphasizes the poetical (rather than the religious) heaven,
that green paradise of form.

M m I# li (HlAKt ft e. -i-
Tori cho keliai iva liito to kotonarazu
Modern Poets I 275
Birds and butterflies,—
They have the same way of expressing themselves
As human beings.

This verse seems to be an indirect way of saying that

birds and butterflies and all sentient beings have the same
hopes and fears, joys and sorrows, and therefore similar
manifestations of them. The poet does not tell us what
caused him to say this, and the poetical region of this
verse lies, not in the abstract statement that all things
are linked together by their inner nature, but in the
feeling of the mysteriousness, the sacredness of the tie.

#05jfePtat/bftLfrK
Tsuyu no tama hashirile nohosu kotsubn liana
Beads of dew run about,
One tiny drop
Remains behind.
The leaves of the plant sway in the breeze. All the
drops of dew fall save one, a very small one, as fair as
a star
When only one is shining in the sky.
This eye of the poet will not miss the smallest pearl of
dew, and “gathers up the fragments that remain.”

fc V tc. % b ft D m tt 0
Tsuyu no tama art taji-taji to nari ni keri
A ball of dew;
The ant
Was aghast at it.
 !
■i I
i i •
! ■
276 Modern Poets 1
I I I
jji This haiku is perilously near to hyperbole and senti­
mentality.
.
. & m * ft ft 5
Aki-kaze ya hakuju tii shite hohku tsukuru
Ah, autumn wind!
Cold-hearted,
I make a hokku.
I
There is nothing else to do in this world.
n m& ± d &ji11 m p *n
Omuro yori hasshi to mozu ya kihu-biyori
A shrike
Twangs from the sky;
Chrysanthemum weather.
The “short shrill shriek” of the bird is in harmony
with the blue sky and the good weather suitable for the
unsentimental chrysanthemums.

■
Shigururu ya me hana mo wakazu hifukidake
Blowing the fire with a bamboo-pipe,
■

Eyes and nose indistinguishable;

j Late autumn rain.
i This is a parody of the perogative of a Buddha, to
: i smell with the eyes and see with the nose.

I L h L h t W ft <r> #
Shin shin to yuki ftirn sora ni tobi no ftie
Up in the sky
Silently snowing,
The fife of the kite.
Modern Poets I 277

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Tobi-orite hazutni yamazu yo kan-suzume

The winter sparrow

Comes jumping down,
And bounces unceasingly.
The sparrow is more of a hopper than the grasshopper,
and when the earth is bare he must skip more.
m <o ± \t o tc v % tc y % it
Yuki no ne pottari kitari ugnisu ga

The uguisu
Came plop
Onto the snow.
The word pottari expresses onomatopoeically not the
sound, but the way of alighting of the bird, like a drop of
water falling. The ga at the end of the verse is the bird
now on the snow.
The following are verses concerning his illness and
death from consumption.
< is. y
Sekikomeba ware hi-no-tama no gotoku, nari

When I have a fit of coughing,

I become like
A fire-ball.

< ft 0
Sekikomeba ware nukegara no gotoku nari

When I have a fit of coughing

I become like
The cast-off skin of a cicada.
 278 Modern Poets I
!
A man is at all times like everything.

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Scki ware wo hanarete mori ivo kakcmcgnru
! |i!:s My cough,
I! I
Leaving me behind,
Runs about the wood.
This reminds us of Basho’s death-verse, a state of mind
and body in which things which belong to us are no
i longer part of us.

B . « t a » i±- & & n m m x a ti

Sckikomcba yowa no shorai mala midarc
When I have a fit of coughing,
Again the soughing of the pine trees
Is dishevelled.
The convulsions of coughing make the sound of the
wind in the pine trees also convulsive.

# * i- & *> if <o + ^ m ?¥ ic m §

Yo mo sugara ase no jiijika se ni cgaki
All night long
I make a cross of sweat
At my back.
Theologically speaking, mystically speaking, Christ’s
suffering is everybody’s suffering, since everybody’s suffer­
ing is felt by Christ as his own suffering. The expression
“cross” is therefore theologically valid, and corresponds
to the practical experience of both men, which is one of
ununderstood and ununderstandable agony.
Modern Poets I 279
4 m k t X>tc § ti Vi -
'Fuyu-bare wo suitaki liana ya sei-ifipai
I try to breathe
The winter clear
To the best of my ability.
He wants to breathe, but not merely to breathe. He
wants to fill his putrid lungs with the air of the blue sky
of winter.

Yaktisoku no kan no tsuhushi ivo nite kudasai

Please boil and give me
The mid-winter horse-tail
You promised.

Man does not live by horse-tail alone, but he lives by

horse-tail. Blessedness and happiness are two different
things, but even the most blessed man wants some hap­
piness. The verse itself is said almost breathlessly, in
a whisper.

<0 o < L tc b
Kan no tsuhushi tobete fuga bosatsu kana
Eating the horse-tail
Of mid-winter,
I am Saint Epicurus.

The Japanese says, “Bodhisattva of good taste.”

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Aoki ftimu murakumo fumu ga gotoku nari
' 'P;
; 3 Modern Poets /
280
I ill ,. I trod on the grass
■

As if treading
On the clouds.
|i
II ill The year of his death he recovered enough to walk to
! illI! the garden. His legs were so weak they hardly seemed
to touch the ground.
rI
I ^ It l t h it m t n# M
ill
: !!
Ishi-makura shite ware semi ka naki-shigtirc
A pillow of stone,
I And I a cicada, who cries,
! I i!
! Cries like a winter shower?
; This was his last verse. The pillow is like a stone;
Sr the cicadas are crying in concert; he himself is weeping
1 : the tears of the cicadas, the tears of the rain.
i!
ir:i
1
.
i

;i
I

.
ill!
r
 Chapter XXXVII
MODERN POETS II

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/foAro tii mo wazuka na hinata ga arcba tabi hosaru
Here also,
Just a little sunshine,—
And some socks are drying. Ichirinso

As a “new” haiku, this has twenty syllables, and no

5, 7, 5 symmetry, but in addition, and more important, it
has the feeling of the poverty of man, his struggle to live,
adapting himself to the smallest things of the world in
order to rise above them.

£ 9 UR V' h b <0 X> & tc ti* ft

Mari-uta ichinichi no hinata liana
The ball-bouncing song, v'
In a sunny place,
All day long. Ichirinsd

What is interesting and good about this verse is the

way in which the feeling (of the mother?) is expressed
indirectly, just as the scene is heard and not looked at.
The small world of the child is thus fully revealed in these
fourteen syllables that follow each other as evenly as the
ball is bounced.

w fiJ —o—o% d x Bs ti p < n - m

Jari no hitotsu hitotsu hikarite tori ga naku kaivara
 282 Modern Poets II

| Each grain of sand sparkling,

A bird twitters
On the dry river-bed. Itto

Each grain of sand shines with the effulgence of Mt.

Sumeru.1 The voice of the bird is that of the Kariobinka.2
The shining fragments of quartz and crystal are the voice
of the bird made visible. The singing of the small bird
are the scintillations made audible.
ii ©
ii Nani ka iitsntsu kuruma oshiyuku mydto nari
!
' A man and his wife
Are pushing the hand-cart,
Saying something to each other. IttO

The man is pulling in front, the wife pushing behind.

What they are saying cannot be heard, but we feel that
.
there is a perfect understanding between them, on some
matter of concern to both of them. It is nothing of vital
importance probably; it is one of those things of which
life is made. The flow between them of mental and
emotional and physical energy is eternalized by their total
absorption and complete unselfconsciousness.

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Okata wa shinikeru hotarn kago wo nurasu
Blowing moisture
Into the cage of fireflies,
Mostly dead. Kashd

Fireflies are kept in a gauze cage into which water is

‘The central mountain of the universe.
2 Kalavinka,
Modern Poets II 283

blown every day to keep it damp. The poet blows the

water in as usual, but as he does so, notices that the
corpses of those one or two that die daily, have amounted
to more than half the number of fireflies. He has a
feeling about the living and dead insects similar to that
which we have when reading the parable of the penny
paid to all the labourers, irrespective of the length of
time they had worked.
Tkf I V'T C
Mizuoto kiite koko ni totsugishi irnoto to iru
Together with my sister,
At the house she married into:
The sound of the water.
The poet has come for the first time to the house into
which his younger sister has married. As he sits there
waiting for the arrival of the members of the family, he
hears the water trickling into the cistern from the bamboo
pipe which conducts the water from the spring in the
nearby ravine. Not only his own solitariness and sadness
are heard in the sound of the water; his sister’s life is
now bound up with this mysteriously clear sound that
echoes in her ears night and day.

7b ft t & & }* m It ti \i A B L
Mihotoke to sumedo samukereba hito koishi
I live with the Buddha,
But when it is chilly,
I yearn for human beings.
The poet is living alone in a small temple in the
recesses of the mountains. When the weather is fine and
II I

284 Modern Poets II

I warm, he feels perfectly happy, but on cold and rainy

days, he misses human company, someone
To whom he may whisper he is alone.
;
That image with the benign countenance, the fixed, eternal
smile, cannot warm our limbs or comfort our weak, lonely
hearts. We realize that
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Apart from human beings there is no Buddha.

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!i Onna ni mimi kasu hatalie no otoko ni idcsomeshi hoshi
Hi- !HU
The man tilling the field
Inclines his ear to a woman:
A star sheds its light upon them.
ni:j I
This is like a painting of Millet in its depth of simpli­
city. But there is something besides this. What is the
• .ill;
it ;i relation between the two? What is she speaking to him
about? Like the star that burns softly above them, it
?! i abides in its mystery.

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Samishiki tori yo kochi muitarcba ware itari
Hi
ill! A solitary bird:
Turning this way,
I am here.
The eye of the bird and the eye of the poet, like two
clear mirrors placed opposite each other,—what do they
both see? Something that is different, and yet the same.
The man looks at the bird and takes a quick involuntary
Modern Poets II 285
breath; the bird looks at the man and its heart loses
a beat.
^ t R ft; t: *) & h <n> ft <D&ti ') V
Futo mezarnetari vtushira no lame no yorn narishi

Suddenly waking,
The night was all
For the insects.
What the poet really heard was the voices of the
insects before he awoke. He felt, in other words, the
movements of nature that go on irrespective of human life.
M uphVbVttiX + gVShillf) - S
Kaze ga yitrari to nagarctc stigishi nrara nari

The wind
Swirled by:
How bright and clear it is! Ichio

This verse would be better written in two lines, to

give to the eye the form of the experience, which is that
of a wave and its recoil, a flow and ebb of the mind.
The wind that suddenly blows past and is gene reveals by
some strange concatenation of feelings the meaning of
light. Both the rhythm and the onomatopoeia of this are
worthy of note. It has an undulation running through
it, and the frequency of r sounds also gives it a windy,
fluid feeling.
A ffi CO m (D % * n# M AjE®
Iritimi no nodo no shiose ya hototogisu

The floodtide comes rushing

Through the neck of the creek:
A hototogisu cries! Yaezakura
 :
i
286 Modern Poets II
?j j. The sea is surging in through the narrow inlet with
great power, and at this moment the holologisu sings.
■

There is something rather artificial about this verse, not

jl that it might not have happened, but even if it did, there
was something accidental about it. Nature itself is not
tl
always natural.
:
UH < <4 ft M 9j
: Namida nagashitsu kataru ko suivari kiku iva India
iii
! Telling his tale,
A child sits weeping;
•' Ilasuo
Listening, the mother.
* iii!
There is the same unsentimental pathos here as in
Coventry Patmore’s The Toys, but deeper, for there is
not only “ the woes that infants bear,” but a silent stoical
.o
sinking into oneself of the mother that represents that
l
•j inner core of the world where things are as they are.

w v'm a* m & & < & & &

Aoi keniuri ga nashi no liana saku wara-ya kara
The blue smoke
: From where the pear tree is blooming
1
j! By the thatched house. Tamon

The eye travels down the smoke to the creamy white

I flowers of the blossoming tree, from there to the still
yellow thatch of the roof.
; •
o t 'X a? pat m X- tc. v At
Monooto seshi ni hono to hi ga mode kietari
It makes a sound,
Flares up,
u And goes out. Hokuro

;
.
Modern Poets II 287
In Zen, the activity of an enlightened man, the im­
mediacy of circumstance and action is compared to a flash
of lightning. This is no mere comparison, for the striking
of a match on the box, the ignition and extinction are all
the expression of the suchness of things, their real Nature,
their Buddha nature, their poetry. Thus, the sound and
the flame and its dying away, when perceived in the
unclouded mirror of our mind, are one with the activity
of the perceiving mind; are at the same time the ordinary
world and the life of perfection.
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Kojiki ga turn tsuyoki hikage ari hinata ari
A beggar passes by,
Through the strong sunlight,
Through the deep shadows. Shikunro
Beggars, like scarecrows, have something comical in
them, but in addition they possess a certain standing,
certain rights and privileges which ordinary people do
not. Further, they approximate, from some inward or
outward necessity, to a condition attained only by saints
and sages. The beggar, then, has a special meaning, a
Buddha-like, ideal significance, and as he passes along the
tree-lined road, through the powerful sunshine, through
the strong summer shadows, he becomes, like Millet’s Man
with a Hoe, more than a mere man. In the sunlight the
beggar is dirty, uncouth, repulsive; in the shadow he is
one with Nature, only a moving figure among stationary
ones. Nothing is clean, nothing is dirty. No one is poor,
no one is rich.

Neteini kora ni mata kisuru yora no nami-oto

 Ill I

1 288 Modern Poets II

Night:
Covering up again the sleeping children,—
! The sound of the waves. Hakusen
1
The children are borne along on those waves that
sound afar off in the darkness. Pulling the quilt over the
11 children deep in slumber, the poet perceives the remotely
present power of nature that echoes in the waves of the
! seashore and in the quiet breathing of the children.
!
ft o ti it A' jii (D m ti © z>
Tomorishi ie ga areba ogawa no nogarciru
There is a cottage
. !l With the lamp lit;
And so there is a stream flowing by. Gekkoshi
For a moment, by a kind of slip of the mind, the poet

11! realizes the interchangeability of cause and effect. Miracles

illustrate the same state of mind. Moses strikes the rock;
water gushes out of it. Because there is a man there, a
stream flows by.

n m
Fumizuki ya amc no naka yori aki no kaze
The Seventh Month;
The autumn wind
Has come out of the rain. Gomei

This verse expresses a rather strange feeling, which is

not so uncommon as we perhaps think. When autumn
comes, everything is still warm with the accumulated
heat of summer. Rain falls, and a cool wind comes from
somewhere, out from the very rain-drops themselves, it
seems.
Modern Poets II 289

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Kiri ni kanashi to kokoro toke futari soiyukcri
Two walk together
Sadly in the mist,
Their hearts dissolved into one. Isso

Sadness and gloom unite as joy and cheerfulness make

us feel our independence and self-sufficiency.

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Sukoshi tobite wa mata aoki asa ni uku kamome
Flying off a little, /
And once more the gulls float
In the blue morning. Sensuird

It is very early morning, only just light, and there is

nothing living to be seen, only the pale sky and the dark
water that whitens on the sand. Suddenly, the group of
sea-gulls that have been floating unnoticed on the waves
fly away a little, and settle on the water again. This is
all, but somewhere, in their original invisibility, in their
spontaneous flying up all together, in their equally sudden
descent to the water and floating there once more, is a
melancholy depth of meaning not deducible from the
separate facts but unmistakably present in each and all.

wr £ a is. s ^ a* u * it s 0
Machi wo hanaruru ameya ni sora ga shimi-ivataru
Leaving the town,
The sky sinks into the heart
Of the sweet-meat vendor. Nisshd

With a load of sweets and toys, the travelling hawker

 jii! If! 290 Modern Poets 11

ill ,i has left one town and is travelling over the moor towards
another, still far off. The plain spreads boundless around
him. On the horizon, vast masses of white clouds are
iii piled up, peak upon peak. In the blue sky, larks are
51 twittering ceaselessly. Something draws a soul concerned
with money and food out of its body into the infinite azure
It above him.
:
■
1
& A
Miziitori nakeru sono mizu no tsuki sono mizu no hos/ii
A water-bird cries:
The moon in the water!
The stars in the water! Mujin

It is evening, an evening that was never day, and will

never be night. The water stretches out, broken here
and there by lines of reed and sand-banks. Suddenly a
water-bird cries; its sharply melancholy voice dies away
as suddenly. The moon in the water shines more pale,
the stars more intense. But it is the water that lies as
deep and still and mysterious as the heart of the poet
himself, that remains after water-bird and moon and stars
i
■ are forgotten.

£ <0 ft fc H S 15 p I- ft & 14 W&

■

Tonio no mustime ga koto nado hikem hodoni sono yo wa

My friend’s daughter
Played the koto, and so on,—
That evening .... Shukdryo

This verse, that sounds so inane in English, is yet of

deep and delicate meaning in the original. This is not a
romantic poem. Rather, through the girl’s playing, the
:
Modern Pools II 291

poet enters into the father’s tender relationship with his

daughter. That playing, with its graceful poses and plain­
tive but clear tones, is the flower of the father’s mind,
it is what he was born for, to play the harp through his
daughter’s Angers and hear it with his own ears. It is
this flowering of his friend’s mind that the poet treasures
afterwards in his heart. In the original, the use of the
particles, nado, hodo ni and lua, are the reverberations of
the notes of the koto..

Long after they were heard no more.

m $ n tf h t Ti \c ju k o < U
Kan-garasti toban to yuki )ii hara wo istiku
The winter crow,
About to fly up,
Presses its breast on the snow. Itto

This kind of haiku reminds us of Wordsworth’s An

Evening Walk.

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Higoto ha otosu ki wo miagcte wa kayou nari
I gaze up at the tree
As I pass by; each day
It sheds more leaves. Soten

Every day for years the poet has walked this road,
perhaps on his way from the house to the station. What
are his thoughts as the leaves fall and the branches become
more bare each day ? The answer is that he simply raises
his head and gazes at the trees as he passes by. There
is nothing to think, nothing to say.
 ’
ii
;■
292 Modern Poets II
i ii
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It; Mushi hitolsu taka-nakcri naki tsuzuku mushi-ra
One insect cries
I
Aloud and all the others
ii Follow suit. Shukoryd

The important point in this verse is that there should

be no slackening of the chirping of the syllables of the
. U
verse.
:
j ffi m K fcli X i> o t> 5 \f h il MilitT-
! Neko ga liama ni detc mono hirogc aril him kana
i

A cat comes out on the shore;

ii Things are spread out;
It is midday. Kiseishi

It is noon; the beach is deserted. Boats and nets,

seaweed and dried fish lie here and there, all lifeless and
of two dimensions. A small thin cat comes prowling out
from some shanty and creeps warily down the beach. The
whole scene becomes alive, gains depth; it is suffused with
the loneliness that only Pascal or some other living thing
could give to the spaces between the stars.

7k
XJtsuri-kite sumu sabishiki liana am
Having moved here,
Some flowers are blooming
.
■ Lonely. Seisui
;
The poet is now living in the new house to which he
has only just moved. Outside, some flowers, not specified,
are swaying in the breeze, flowers planted by the former

:
Modern Poets II 293

tenant of the house. There is something lonely in the

aspect of these flowers that are blooming so gladly for
him who planted them, something melancholy in the way
their beauty is being reaped by one who did not sow it.
The subjectivity of this verse is consciously felt, yet in­
escapable, for the loneliness of the flowers is also inherent
in them. Each creature is of an unutterable loneliness,
that is perceived in proportion as our own hearts are
possessed of it.

ft t- ft co m I
Iliruge td-bete mala kishi kodomo kodomo no koe
After the midday meal,
Children have come back;—
The children’s voices! Yoshird
Children are a nuisance, but even a temporary absence
makes the heart grow dearer. The teacher sits alone in
the empty classroom; only the fly in the sunny window-
pane breaks the silence. Marking books, sometimes lost in
reverie, he suddenly becomes aware of clear young voices
in the playground. There is a rush of some unnameable
feeling deep down inside him, something that does not
rise near the surface, accompanied by a warm emotion
with a touch of melancholy in it, perhaps for his own
youth of long ago, for the childhood of the world, and
for the passage of time.

Bydin e yuku bymin ni liosoki kokage

The sick man
Going to the doctor’s,
Slender tree-shadows on him. Kafugen
 1

wIUI i!':
294 Modern Poets II

The sick man is not very robust-looking; his walk and

the way he holds himself shows life is ebbing, and gives a
■
feeling of the contraction rather than the outflow of life.
The road seems dusty, and the young, thin trees that
border it make a pattern which falls on and moves over
the man as he passes along.
!
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Tsukiyo no kumo hie-bie to no no yomo ni arishi
: U Coldly, the clouds
■:
Of this moonlit night,
Over all the moor. Shurindo

!. 6 Here the haiku is purely objective, yet with some

spiritual life within it which raises it above mere astronom­
ical observation. The facts observed have been translated
into the poet’s own words, that shine like the moon and
trail like the clouds. It is the rhythm and cadence of the
verse which bear the greater part of the meaning. The
haiku begins abruptly and ends, with a kind of finality.

II ts.\' <D II h h\t ^ 9 ITUS

!
Tare mo kurenai no da tombogaeri shite mo fuyuzora
i, i
Not a penny from anybody!
Turning a somersault,—
ii i The winter sky. Genzaburo
!
Some children are turning cart-wheels, but people look
on with indifference. Every time they are upside-down
they see the sky of winter, whose coldness is repeated in
a different form when they stand up straight and pass
round the hat.
Modern Poets II 295

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(//hi no aosa yama no aosa ni kunio kasanarcri
The green of the sea,
The green of the mountains,
The clouds piled upon them. Hakusen

The repetition and rhythm of the original are not

impossible to imitate in the English. The haiku itself is
dynamic rather than pictorial.

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Itadaki no matsu ga akesomete tsumetaki basha no fue
The pine-trees on the summit
Are tinged with dawn;
Cold the whistle1 of the horse-coach. Yoshiro

The horn of the horse-bus arouses the people of the

hamlet to a new day of life. The pine-trees on the
mountain are tinged with the rays of the rising sun, and
the cool morning air (of summer?) gives a zest to every­
thing.

To ni sawaru oto mo shizukeshi yoru no yuki

Snow in the evening
Touching the door;
The sound is soft. Joy5

«|:io--oriaS:jilDJg9 jE
Cho futatsu hitotsu iva ware too mawari-ori
‘This is a very small horn which the driver blows to inform
would-be passengers of his coming.
II
in

lit
296 Modern Poets II
Two butterflies,
hi! One of them
Is flying around me. Tadashi
! ■

Only one of the butterflies is portrayed, the other is

left to the reader’s imagination, or rather, it flutters about
in some other region of his mind.
9 If ft t 0 /X fiu 111
Yuki harete sora sarigenaki asahi kana
After the snow, it cleared up;
Careless and imperturbable,
:! The morning sun. Geizan
This reminds us of two lines from Tennyson’s Ode on
the Death of the Duke of Wellington:
Nothing in nature’s aspect indicated
That a great man was dead.
It has something in it of Wordsworth’s feeling of
The calm oblivious tendencies of nature.
There is also a waka from the Shinkokinshu, Summer:
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SE £ 9 If fc fm *> * n n.
The earth of the garden
Is still undried,
But in the cloudless sky
; There remains no trace of the shower:
How clear the moon!

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Kisodani no iwa-ga-ne shizumu aki-hi kana
Modern Poets II 297

The rocks of Kiso Valley

Sink and settle
In the autumn sunlight. Hosha
The Vale of Kiso is famous for its huge rocks.

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Kttsa moyu ya kttyuru kokcro no sunao naru
Grasses are sprouting;
My repentance
Is mild. Toso

A mild repenting is perhaps the truest and best. It is

in its softly budding condition.

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Iwashi-gumo kioku iva told koto ni base
The mackerel sky;
I think of the world
Of long ago. Kyoho
Distance in space leads us to distance in time.

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Ktsaragi ya haka-jochin ni asahi sasu
It is the Second Month,—
The morning sun shines down
On the lantern at the grave. Chofu
After a dead man is buried, two white paper lanterns
hang at the new grave (perhaps to keep evil spirits away).
When the poet passed through the grave-yard in the cold
February morning, the pale sunlight was falling on the
white lanterns.
3

298 Modern Poets II

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ToAtk Ar/s/i/ tembo no inori fukakaranu
I came a long way,
But the prayer at the grave
; Was not deeply prayed. Hiroshi
. He came from far away to visit the grave of a dear
friend, but, perhaps due to his tiredness of body, he felt
an exhaustion of mind, even an indifference somewhat
ii :
shocking to him. In our hearts, the wind bloweth when
fi and where it listeth.
■:
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Shiiya kakketsu hazoku no kao no azayaka ni
Haemorrhage of the lungs
One autumn night:
How vivid my family’s faces! shihaku
It is a terrible world, in which we have to spit blood
just in order to see people's faces clearly.
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Ochiba michi yuki todomarite yama no haka
The path of fallen leaves
Leads to the graves on the hill,
\ And stops there. Hatsutaro
This is the History of the World in three lines.
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Rinchu no ante hibiki-au ochiba kana
In the deep forest,
The rain and the fallen leaves
Echo each other. Kokyo
Modern Pools II 299

This should remind us of the 29th Case of the Mumon-

kan: Is it the flag, or is it the wind that is moving?

111 % k In -f A* \c '/ U co ft co aft im-p

Yama-giri wo kasuka ni damn no liana no uzti
Under the mountain mist,
The flowery whirlpool
Of the dam. Shokeishi

Onto the vast expanse of water have fallen the petals

of the cherry trees planted round the dam. They are
almost motionless, but near the sluice they begin to circle
round. We feel the peacefulness and violence of nature
together.

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Rosoku no hi ni kao wo mint nowaki kana
The autumn tempest:
Looking at one another
In the candle-light. Sekitd

As this is a modern verse, it probably implies what is

called teiden, a stoppage of electricity. People see each
other by the light of a candle, with the veering, shifty,
revealing, horizontal light of the candle.
 ! :
1
W
Chapter XXXVIII
MODERN POETS III

?- m
Risshii no min hisoka ni yoru no slioku
-1
The beginning of autumn;
Night at a nuns’ temple;
The candle is still. Shimei

The nunnery, autumn, evening, the candle, the empty

room,—sometimes vve feel as though the harmony were
pre-arranged, deeply conscious.
Rl
i !
I
«s <o *r * ^ouofiSK a
ii Pasuha no hi uraru no tctsn no shokudai ni
The Paschal light
!!: From the iron candlesticks
1 i
i ■
Of the Urals Ry5
►
This is an extraordinarily good haiku, dealing as it
Ii
.! does with an exotic subject. We can hear the horns of
Rimsky Korsakov’s Easter Music.
Ill
I:
T1 m ¥
Fuyu nanii no togareru oto ni yado-sagari
The maid at home on holiday;
The sound of the winter waves
Is severe and sharp. Kampei
But this is her home, and this relentless and irresistible
Modern Poets III 301

sound of the sea is familiar to her, though never ignored

or despised.

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Tsuyu no yo no kaiva oto tsnma no hiza kuzure
The sound of the stream
At night in the rainy season;
My wife sits at ease. Tatsunosuke

Usually his wife sits correctly, her feet under her

thighs, but it is the rainy season when the universal rain
make everything and everybody relaxed and indifferent
to forms and ceremonies. The sound of the stream
intensifies the wateriness and fluidity of the night.

m % <P> ffi < b < Btcb ft m-k

Mutsu no umi kuraku namitachi haru-matsuri
A northern province;
The dark sea runs high;
The spring festival. Hakuyo-jo

The wild, cold-looking sea is the background.

5 *f
Tekkyo ni fuyn no kasutni no fukamarinu
About the railway bridge
The winter haze
Deepens. Ryoson
The haze which is especially thick over the river under
the bridge has something gloomy and mysterious in it,
but at the same time it presages the spring that is to
come.
■
ihl

i1 302 Modern Poets III

mrj ii |!| : m <0 _h \c 4 JII o #3® V' & <; itf Ws
/wa c fuytt-gawa no oto kayoi ori
it 1
III II i Over the rocks
Passes the sound
: I Of the winter stream. Ito
li:
In winter the water is low, the wind flows strongly,
j
and as ceaselessly as the water itself over the cold rocks.
WHS 5:1
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M/2M hikarite shi am ga gotoshi kacri bana
US III

111
The water glitters,
II : As though my teacher were here;
Unseasonable flowers. Yori
111
1 This verse was written upon the death of Suiha, tKE,
his haiku teacher, famous for his cold nobility of character.
iii The sunshine of winter is weak, and flowers are blooming
!i I a second time in spite of their inevitable fate.
fell i
- !
Kiri wo kishi mo no shiro-tabi wo nugi ni kcri
Come through the mist,
li 5
She took off the white tabi
- I Of her mourning clothes. Maneishi

\\ There is a strange connection between the white, damp

1 socks, and the mist, and between the funeral ceremony,

and taking the socks off.

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!l Tsutsumashiki sugata ni hito no tnugi wo maku
‘
Modern Poets III 303
A man sowing
Barley,
Modestly. Awaji-jo

This modesty is that of Shakespeare and Chaucer and

Basho and Wordsworth before nature.

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Yamazumi no tsuki no haruka ni tsugumi-ami
The far-off moon;
Below, a mountain-god shrine,
And thrush-nets. Reiho-jo

This scene is one ideal for painting,—a moon low in

the sky on the far horizon, a shrine among the trees on
the mountain, nets to catch little birds seen vaguely in
the faint moonlight.

9 ft K Z £
Setsurei ni kokoro mazushiku tachi ni keri
I stand still
On the snowy mountain,
Poor in mind. Kyusha

This poverty is that of “Blessed are the poor.”

No no shimeri fuyu-mozu mori no ha ni detari

The dampness of the field:—
A winter shrike comes
To the edge of the wood. Jizoson

The earth is wet and faintly warm. A shrike comes

 j 304 Modern Poets III
out of the darkness to the edge of the sunshine. We feel
spring is not far away.

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Entcn ya kinsaku tsukishi kaban oku
The blazing sun;
I put down my bag,
Having failed to raise the money. Kokyu

i The heat comes down, the heart goes down, the bag
goes down.

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Hoto ni tsuki samushi tori liayashi sent
The moon is chill
On the stone lanterns;
Peach and damson trees make a grove. Fuson
1:1
What is interesting about this verse is the harmony
between the stone lanterns, the moon, and the grove of
fruit trees. The stone lanterns are literally “Law-lanterns,”
and in Zen the word lamp is used to signify direct, mind-
to-mind enlightenment. The Records of the Transmission
of the Lamp, 1004 a.d., is the name of one of the
most famous of Zen books. The moon is a common
symbol of the truth of Buddhism, the coldness of the
winter moon' perhaps intensifying its austere meaning.
H The word forest, or wood, is used in the Zen Sect as a
|1 i symbol of the monks, or rather of the collection of temples

i of that Sect. The tori, peach and damson, are often used
symbolically in Zen sayings, for example:
'i;
1
«3? ik t ph, is @ % 0 a.
Modern Poets III 305
The peach and damson flowers bloom in the midst
of the fire:
The sun rises in the evening.

This points to the transcendental state of the Zen

adept.

siu
The peach and damson flowers’ silent smile
Is the mutual understanding of Kasyapa on the Sacred
Mountain.

This refers to the communication by the Buddha to

Kasyapa of the truth of (Zen) Buddhism by holding up a
flower to the congregation of monks and smiling. The
language of the verse, then, and its associations point to
the transcendental calm and unity between heaven and
earth.

M &
Hideri-znki roten eisJia no ushiro yori
The moon of the drought
Rises from behind the screen
In the open air. Seishi

A film is being shown in the open air to the country

people.

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Kagcrd ni liana atatamuru notima kana
Moorland horses
Warming their noses
At the heat rays. Ayatari
This has the humour which is so essential to our
■■■' •j
!ii
306 Modern Poets 111
.
ill treatment of animals. We see it, a sterner kind indeed,
in Lawrence’s Birds Beasts and Flowers.

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Ill mi Okuyama tva yamabato naite liana mo shizukcki
:
In the depths of the mountains

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The wild pigeons are cooing,
The flowers also bloom peacefully.
ii
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Yo ya samtiki sato ni oritsuku saru no koe kikoyu
■
.
i The night is cold
Monkeys have come down to the hamlet,
i: Their voices can be heard.

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Shiba-gaki ni sasagi shiba naku samtiki yiibc ni

i j Under the brushwood fence

The wren is chirping
In the chilly dusk.

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■ . Kikai no tie ni mo tsuki sashite minna inaku natte iru MTfJR
Above the machinery too
The moon shines bright:
Not a soul there. Genjurd

The machinery which has been so active and loquacious

all day long, is now inert and silent, no human beings
hovering around it. Its unnatural monstrous mass lies
there under the moon just like fields and hills.
Modern Poets III 307
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Denki ga tsuku to kaette yuktt kodomora ni suihei ga aru $]t
The electric lights;
V
The schoolboys on their way home,
The sea-line beyond them. Kenzo

This must be a scene of winter, because the electric

lights are alight so early. The children are cold, the road
is bleak. In the early evening the whole expanse of sea
is visible one side of the road, hardly different in colour
from the sky. Though they are children, it is mankind,
and though the electric lamps are just the bulbs, and the
poles stand gaunt and bare, it is nature.

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IJatsu-cho ya inochi afurete ochitsukazu
The first butterfly,
So full of life,—
It’s all excitement! Shunichi

Not because it is first, but because it is so much alive.

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Ware tateru keito tateru aida katia
I stand here;
The cockscombs stand there;
There is a space between. Kosanjin

The aim of life is to get rid of this space. But it is

always there. When God created things, he created the
space between them.

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Daikon wo sageyuki shufu no geta herasu
 ! 308 Modem Poets III

11 : A radish in her hand,

The housewife
Wears out her wooden clogs. Ilaruo
This is the animal-like life of most women. The radish

If may be a diamond ring or a pearl necklace, the clogs

may be high-heeled shoes, but it is the same woman.

m *
Yume no yo ni negi too tsiilinrite sabishisa yo
I grow leeks
Lonely,
In this world of dreams. Koi

There is an odd relation between leeks and loneliness,

which the alliteration brings out. Man creates both,

m .
sometimes together.

Ma-otome no mainoritc sabisliiki ko no nemuri

;i; Under the virgins care,

.ni
-■

-
The silkworms are sleeping
Lonesomely.

The word “lonesomely” suggests not only that the

Toten

silkworms are not aware of being cared for but that the
'
: maidens don’t really care twopence about the silkworms;
it’s only a money-making business.

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: Fund dojo-ya ga ikite ite dojo de gozai # it
The old loach-monger,
He’s still alive;
“Loaches! Loaches!” he cries. Mudo
Modern Poets III 309
This is Wordsworth’s The Old Leech-gatherer in 17
syllables.

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Enten ni nakashitaru ko no kage chisaku
The tiny shadow
Of the child 1 made cry
Under the burning sun. Takemi

This is a good example of the complete inexplicability

and poetic unscientificness of human nature. It is not the
child but its shadow she pities, and not the shadow but
the mere smallness of it that touches our hard hearts.

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Bara ikete omotaki gashii hiraki miru
Arranging the roses,
And opening and looking at
The heavy picture book. Shuhei

There is an unexpected harmony between the rose and

the heaviness of the book. These correspondencies are of
no less importance for poetry than the wonder-causing
differences.

ifi 3
Takitsukete nao hiroku Jiaku ochiba kana
Making a bonfire
Of the fallen leaves,
And sweeping still wider. Hakuun

When we make a fire of the fallen leaves, it excites

us, and we wish to make the bonfire bigger and better,
and feel a tendency to burn anything and everything
 ;

■
310 Modern Poets III

' There is a Russian story, I forget by whom, in which a

11! very miserly man burns up all his firewood on the day of
1 a festival, much regretting it on the morrow.

i
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 Chapter XXXIX
MODERN POETS IV

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En-ten ni nisshdki minu osoroshiki

Under a blazing sun

I saw the sun-rising flag,
And felt awe. Taizd

The combination of the ferocity of nature and the

ferocity of man is overpowering.

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Him kumoru niiva ya botan no shiro fukashi

Cloudy noon in the garden;

The whiteness of the peony
Is deep. Taizd

When the sun shines, we feel the brilliance and power

of the peony. When it is cloudy we feel its whiteness.

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Kan-goi ni niiva yama kage no yoso no koto

Carp in mid-winter,
The sound of a harp from somewhere
Beyond the hill in the garden. Yaei

This is a rather luxurious verse, in several senses, and

belongs to waka, not haiku.
ii'1!
J: 312 Modern Poets IV
■■

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Uta-dokei hatsuhi sashit-sutsu kanade Jteri
yHi ■ The first sun of the year
Shines on the song-clock
I ii 1! Playing its music. Ran
i This verse belongs to the 18th century world, but nature
;
! and human nature were the same than as now.

Jr A
Me-gashira too some te mesu yobu ham no tori
Reddening his eyelids,
The spring cock
Is calling for his hens. Kyuhachi
This cock is a relative of the one in The Man Who
! Died, and also to that in The Nun’s Priest’s Tale.
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Hana kitte asahi ni mukau hadashi kana
■
With a flower just cut,
I walk towards the morning sun
On naked feet. Masao
This also is a verse that would have pleased D. H.
Lawrence.
i
Etc 4
Yuba no ureshisa ashi arau toki no futa-koto mi-koto ni
! The happiness of evening,
While I wash my feet,—
Those two or three words. Kaito

i *: After hoeing all day in the field, growing the food that
Modern Poets IV 313

he and his family will eat, manuring the field with the
excreta of their bodies, he comes back in the evening and
washes his feet in the cold water of the darkening stream.
A few other men are also there, born of the same soil,
destined to lie together with him on the sunny slope of
the same hill. They do not chatter but are not morose.
One or two pregnant and living words are spoken among
them, and that night, as he looks back on the day, those
few words about their work are emanations from the soil
itself. Not like the sages in Limbo;
Genti v’eran con occhi tardi e gravi
Di grande autorita ne’ lor sembianti:
Parlavan rado, con voci soavi.1
but expressing with their lips the sweat of their toil, the
heat of the sun, the unwilling willingness of the earth.

% yk
Maki orosu yityama samushi mozu no hoc
Bringing down the firewood,
The evening hills are cold:
The voice of the shrike! Kasui
The rough firewood, the cold mountain, the shrill voice
of the bird, are in a discordant harmony. Sight, touch, and
sound exacerbate one another.

^ m ti x w: m# m % t
Sliiosedori nagareteiva tobu akeyasuki
The birds float seawards
On the tide,—and then fly back:
It is about to dawn. Ckaishi
1 Inferno, iv, 110-112.
 !

314 Modern Poets IV

:
It is now early morning in summer, when the nights
;• i are short and dawn comes almost unexpectedly quickly.
The sea-birds float along on the tidal wave, then fly up and
back again. The tide again carries them along, and again
j !
they rise and return to the original spot.

! ft V m m
' Bansho ni oboro no niou kakine kano
i:
. The vesper bell:
In the haze, the scent
Ii 1 Of the hedge. Choha

Hi Keats said, “0 for a life of sensation!” and the haiku

1 poets would have echoed this. In the above verse we

see one sensation reinforcing another, sound and smell
1 increasing the meaning of the flowers at the foot of the
hedge and the deep-toned lingering voice of the temple
bells.
itj;
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Arare no oto denshinki no oto mado no yakei
i i
The pattering of the hail,
[■
The sound of the telegraph machine,
The night scene outside the window. Setsujin

Night has fallen, but the city outside can be seen

! from what must be the third or fourth floor of a large
building. The combination of the sounds of nature and
!!
that of machines, with a background of city life, gives us
a strong impression of modern feeling.
ii

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Kao e hi ga nokotte iru tsuruhashi no togariyo

!
Modern Poets IV 315
The remaining sunlight
Shining on their faces,
How sharp the picks!
This verse seems as if taken from Hardy’s Far from
the Madding Crowd:
. . . the shearers' lower parts becoming steeped in
embrowning twilight, v/hilst their heads and shoulders
were still enjoying day.
These men are perhaps workers on the rail-road, who
lift and let fall their picks in unison, the picks also
receiving the level rays of the sun when they are raised.
This verse has the form 5, 5, 5, 5, which seems to suggest
the repeated striking of the pick-axes.

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Asa made no jikan wo ikinukcrcba tasukaru to id, jikan

The hours till day-break,

“If he gets through them, he will live,”—
These hours! Atsuyuki

Someone, possibly a child, is passing through the most

critical stage of a dangerous illness, in the time between
late night and early morning. The doctor has said that
during this time the struggle between health and disease,
between life and death, between, the powers of good and
evil will take place. The steady ticking of the clock
signifies the movement of time, but the feeling is of
eternity. This dreadful now-ness of the waiting is ex­
pressed by the comma.
<D)\\ 6 B
Fune ni nete furusato hyakuri ama-no-gawa
111

' :Hi!: :
316 Modern Poets IV
Sleeping on the boat,
My native place a hundred leagues away:
The River of Heaven. Hakuchin

This is an imitation of Chinese poetry, and requires a

far greater area of land than Japan can afford. We cannot
say that this is not haiku, only that it is larger and vaster,
■

more expansive and exuberant than haiku, which is reticent

and subdued.

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■I! Yu-zaktira mono taku honoo irozukintt
I Cherry blossoms at night;
Making a bonfire with things,
i
The flames tinge the flowers. Yofu
is After the flower-viewing is over, someone, a gardener
i or the poet himself, makes a fire of the scraps of things
: littered about, and the blossoms in the misty evening take
i!:. upon themselves yet one more beauty with the glow of
the bonfire.
:
l!
Fuji tarete furu ni mo arame sora hikushi
. The wistaria blossoms hang down;
:
:i It is not going to rain;
The sky is low. Otsur5

It seems about to rain, the sky is lowering, and the

wistaria blossoms hang down in their characteristically
; heavy and melancholy way.

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To-gaeru mata oki-gataki hi ga tsuzuku

'I

i
 IP
Modern Poets IV 317

The distant voices of the frogs;

Days when it’s difficult to get up
Still follow one after another. Ryd

Things are here put together too bluntly, almost thrown

together. The first five syllables only are concerned with
I
nature, the rest with the sick man.

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Matsu no shizukesa naki-aeru mizutori
Under the peaceful pine-trees
The water birds
Are calling to each other. Nissho

This verse expresses in its cadence the kind of thing

Wordsworth does in the Immortality Ode,
Ye blessed Creatures, I have heard the call
Ye to each other make; I see
The heavens laugh with you in your jubilee.

Tada ni damatte tsnchi ivo utsu oya to ko to yxibe

Silently only
Tilling the soil,
Father and son and the evening, shim
The interesting point of this verse is the position of
yube. By putting it at the end, we are left with an
impression like that of Victor Hugo’s Le Semeur. The
whole verse simplifies itself to the pair of human beings
putlined against a still glowing sky, and the three are
melted together.
 II!!
j:iis Hi
I !i|
'T ! j 318 Modern Poets IV

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in Ganjitsu ya te tvo arai orii yii-golwro

111;
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New Year’s Day:

:
j Washing my hands,
My feeling that evening. Gaki

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li Ochiba furn oto liito-shikiri dai-garan
Hi : There was a shower
Of falling leaves:
til11
The great temple. Shiei
{■
I
This is a verse of contrast. We feel the strength and
r
■' li!
the weakness of things at one and the same time, the
world of nature and the world of man, but both with
something divine in them.

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Shioki liirou ura no hiyori kan no umi
i
Collecting drift-wood,
Fine weather in the bay:
The winter sea. Shiei
|
Someone is collecting wood to burn for making salt.
The sea is threatening, though the day is calm.

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Gawa-gawa to hasu fukisusabu stizumi hana
j The strong wind blows
The lotus leaves together, gawa-gawa:
Cooling in the evening. Kaga

It is a warm evening of late summer, near the begin-

■
Modem Poets IV 319

ning of autumn, when rather strong winds begin to blow.

The leaves of the lotus strike against one another with
a rubbery sound peculiar to them, represented by the
onomatopoetic word gaiva-gawa; the g and the w express ;
the sound well. :

W*? f r ; <n 7U
Saezuri ya piano no ne no itsu-hokori
Little birds singing:
A thin dust
On the piano. Hajime

This is a very “modern” haiku, not merely in the

materials, but in the delicacy, the nuance, the slightly
dead, slightly unreal atmosphere. Indeed, like the dust,
the haiku is “thin.”

mm o m * % t ± l m & &
Asagao no ha wo makiagcshi stidare kana
The leaf of the morning-glory
Rolled up together
With the bamboo blind. Kosetsu

This reminds us of Chiyo-jo’s verse:

Asagao ni tsuru.be toraretc morai-mizu

The well-bucket
Having been taken by the morning-glory,
I borrow water.

Here it is nature which interferes with the purposes of

man.
 I 'ii,
i Iilli:* ! ' 320 Modern Poets IV

m iTt ii if /]' £ t *8 o e If n * <5

%
■

Hagi orcba chiisaki cho no kobore tatsu

! \i
Hi ) Breaking off a spray of bush-clover,
i<! i A tiny butterfly dropped out
i
And flew away. Shiei
i\
ii
This has a feminine delicacy and grace. The plant and
:: !.:
!
the small, winged insect, the purplish blossoms and the
ii greyish-white butterfly or moth,—these two things are in
! i :: an exquisite poetic harmony.
1 il
<4- o &
\ Stimire /unit shinayaka ni yultu ushi no ashi
:
\\< Treading on the violets,
!
The legs of the cow
Move elegantly. Fujio
5 : Not only is each thing the enemy of each other, but
: beauty destroys beauty.
1.1
1 S

!
i
:
 Chapter XL
THE “BEST” MODERN HAIKU

The Preface to the 1st Volume spoke very cruelly of

modern haiku. The reader may like many of the haiku
quoted in the later part of this 2nd Volume, and feel that
the judgement was extreme. However, we may take Haiku
Kaiisho Sambyakurokujugonichi, 0, “Haiku
and their Appreciation for Three Hundred and Sixty Five
Days,” as a sort of test case. Modern haiku (that is, after
Shiki) were chosen by the following twelve haiku poets
respectively: Shuoshi, Seishi, Seison, Fusei, Iiakyo, Fushio,
Sanki, Rinka, Shuson, Tatsuko, Kusatao, and Dakotsu. Of
these 365 verses, which must be among the best, as chosen
by the twelve best living poets, I could only find 22 that
I thought good enough to include here. Each verse has
about a page of minute explanation, and it may be interest­
ing to give one example of how the Japanese haiku poets
explain haiku.

^ CO |]£ £T dl co &
Sdshun no ltamakurayama no tsubaki kana
The camellias
Of early spring
On the mountains of Kamakura. Kyoshi
This verse, for the 4th of February, was chosen by
Seishi, and he explains it as follows:
Spring has come, but the feeling of cold is still
" ;■; |;l;;'

; ulf i!j!: :■ 322 The “Best” Modem Haiku

■•I!!; 1::'■
I flit*

I! vacillating, doing its best, and making mistakes. Spring

is too early. “The mountains of Kamakura” does not

kt !!
mean mountains, but the hills and valleys of Kamakura
where Kyoshi lived a long time, the hills and valleys
among which he used to walk. (In Kamakura, valleys,
taiii, are called yatsu.)
When we go to such a place we find camellias bloom­
ing among the dark trees in the hills. The season of

ini the camellias is decided by the time when flowers

bloom and the seed is formed. In this verse it is of
course a blooming camellia tree that is referred to. In
'•! i early spring, the air is still cold, but on the hills of
Kamakura which face the sea, camellias were actually
blooming.
■
This sort pleasure is one that is especially granted
s') to haiku poets.
I! : This verse was submitted at the Tokyo University
! Haiku Association when I was a student. The strong
h! impression I received from it then still coninues to this
moment. Underneath its simplicity lies something
:!! strong and penetrating.
; : ■ . Both the verse and the comment seem to me trivial
i
and egotistic. It is a fact that Kamakura and its literary
i ■
. and historical associations are in harmony with the ro­
mantic camellias and the early spring. But what a to-do
Iii« about nothing much! This egotism of modern haiku poets
%
comes out also in the following, chosen by Fukio for the
!: 17th of June:
W t t X> \c U !)
Hi: Ka no koe no hisoka naru toki ktii ni keri

!• At the hushed voice

Of the mosquito,
What remorse I felt! Kusatao
?

III
 The “Best” Modern Ilaiku 323

The writer does not tell us what the contrition he felt

was caused by, nor does the selector-commentator. It is the
private world of the poet, which he does not let us into.
Another kind of modern haiku difficult to appreciate,
and which I find disagreeable, is that which attempts to
“poetify” some western objects or activities, for example
the following, chosen by Shuoshi for the 24th of January:
/

Ragubii no tazei okurete kakcri kuru

Rugby;
A lot of them come running,
Following after. Seishi
This must be one of the first haiku ever written upon
*■

this subject. It describes what happens often enough in ^

a match, but somehow this ragubii, with its sukuramu ^
and goru and Jakuru does not go well into the haiku form, i
K*t
There is what is called jinji, A?]?, human affairs, but when '*

"r* these human affairs have little or nothing to do with

nature we get senryu rather than haiku. A similar at­
tempt, much more successful, made nearly three hundred
years ago:

j-
x o i£ b <o & w mm * w m sfe 10? ©
Teppo no tone ni kumoru uzuki kana
The distant report of a gun
Sounds cloudy:
The Month of the u. Yakei
It is April according to the Lunar Calendar, and the u
1 means “the month of the u flower.”
2Yakei’s verses appeared in Hisago, 1690.
 324 The “Best” Modern llaiku
flower is blooming along the hedge. Beneath the moon,
«
in the distance, is heard the sound of a gun-shot. It
Ii i sounds dull and cloudy, like the season itself. Guns were
introduced into Japan about a hundred and fifty years
before this time.
\\ . The following are the 22 verses chosen, with 343
. rejected. They are in seasonal order.

li Iii W^ ^ ^ ^ t
Hatsnnagi ya cliidori ni majiru ishitataki
7C

iili
!
i
:
■
m The first calm sea of the year;
Together with the plovers
Hi Mingle wagtails. Ilajime
Hi The wagtail, is here written, TiTctc^, “stone
ii striker,” from its everlasting moving of the tail up and
ii down while it stands. It is this motion which differentiates
|!j! ! it from the plovers, and it is this movement which con­
h: trasts it with the motionless sea.

tfc m
: Kandan no futokoro ni shite kan-tamago
« A quiet chat,
Winter eggs
'll: il In the bosom. Dakotsu

’ll We imagine two rather elderly people sitting in the

: winter sunshine, forty or fifty chickens outside. They
M
\u\ sometimes put their hands in their bosom to feel the
warmth of the eggs incubating there.

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Shiroki kyosen kitareri ham mo tokarazu
The “Best” Modern Haiku 325

A great white ship

Is entering the harbour;
Spring cannot be far off. Rinka

The original does not say “harbour,” but this must be

Yokohama where the author lives. The interesting point
here is what we may call the superstition of the verse. \
The size and whiteness of the ship makes us believe that
spring will soon come.
:
n u trc -x t ‘X # ft u &
Oshi nadcte okiku maruki hibachi kana
Passing the hand ;
Over the brazier,
So large, round. Ontei

This brazier is an earthenware one, quite old and used,

and a friend of the family, particularly of the older people. i

!
Mojii ni mada ham asaki sono no kigi
For the fierce creatures, !
Spring is still early
Among the trees of the Gardens. Aoi /

Though human beings have made all kinds of arrange­

ments for the housing and feeding of these wild animals
in the zoo, Nature moves at an unperturbed pace. The
trees are still leafless.

co CD It L tr ft
Ilaru-samu no kami no hashi ftimu sukite kana
 ¥
:Sli; i;!
SIlii i
326

Spring still cold,

The hair-dresser
The “Best” Modem Haiku

■
: § Treads on the ends of my hair. Hisajo
mi ; This verse belongs to the time when women had long
hair, (and men moustaches). The interesting point is the
!i
. ii • •
ill
Ir1
union of the feeling of cold, and the twinge of pain, both
in the skin.
■
llii!■ ]: ic g io L # tf Iff- T- m W. ts.
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i
Nigiivashiki yukige shizuku no garan kana
The drops of water of the snow melting
From the great temple,—

m;
in i
How animated! Seiho

There is something almost improper in the cheerful

bustling drops of water round the stolid, unmoving Bud­
Ii . =
dhist abbey.

m IIigashiyama hikuslii harusame hasa no uchi

*f m

Iff Higashiyama is a low mountain,

:
hi From under an umbrella
m i;j
In the spring rain. Toshio

We do not have to raise the umbrella to look at this

■
hill behind Kyoto, as we would if we wanted, elsewhere,
’ll:
aii
‘ill ;
!:i
to see Mount Fuji.

v tc b tc b m
Kamo no hashi yori tara-tara to ham no doro
• i From the beaks of the ducks,
Drip, drip, drip,
The mud of spring. Kyoshi

:■
The “Best” Modern Haiku 327

This reminds us of Wordsworth’s lines from The Eve­

'S'
ning Walk:

Where the duck dabbles mid the rustling sedge,

And feeding pike start from the water’s edge,
Or the swan stirs the reeds, his neck and bill
Wetting, that drip upon the water still.

h £ V tc Z, 4$ <D < M i S H it ttA/—

Tomaritaru cho no kurari to kazc wo tike
The butterfly at rest;
When it is blown by the wind,
It lurches a little. Kenji

This verse expresses the nature of the butterfly. It

does not change its place, but the wings slant as it resists
the wind.

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Miyu hodo no tosa ivo func ga ham no umi
Farther and farther goes the ship
Until the eye can just perceive it,—
The spring sea. Seisei

To enable us to grasp the nature of the spring sea it

is necessary that ships should be built and manned and
sent far over the ocean.

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Tsnma dakana shunchtt no jari fumite kacru
Thinking of embracing his wife
This spring day, he comes back,
His feet crunching in the gravel. Kusatao
■

328 The “Best” Modern Ilaiku

ViM !ii The gravel and its sound under his footsteps are his
desire in another form.
m I® ^U<o-k * ft 5E & & o & frtiic
| : Saihaktc no onna mina shinu yoru no aki

. Ir Saikaku’s women,—
All of them die:
!H! An autumn evening. Kanajo

Iil If we think, for example, of Koshoku Gonin Onna, ift

Osen commits suicide, Osan commits double
suicide, Oshichi is executed, and so on, but not exactly
all die. However, to a woman, on a melancholy autumn
evening, it may well seem that women are born to such
IIft a fate.

i * t mu v v
Suzuri arau sumi ao-ao to nagare keri
rim
1 li
• ■

!
Washing the ink-stone,
i The Indian ink flows away
Blue, blue. Takako
I ;
i There are two interesting things here, the unexpected
:
colour of the supposedly black Indian ink; and the fact
II 1 I
that the ink is seen to have an independent life quite
.
;is:l apart from the use people make of it.

: ;
{ Saki ni neshi kao no kanashiki yonaga no hi
i- i In the lamp-light of the long night,
Sad is the sleeping face
! I -■

Of the one who went to bed first. Toshiko

; ill
i
; i
The “Best" Modem Haiku 329

This seems very long in the original also, but it is

only seventeen syllables. This verse is by a woman.

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Shizttkesa ya sumi ga hi to nam onozukara
The quietness;
The charcoal becomes fire
Of itself. Soj5

This verse, written in the middle of the Taisho Era,

attracted much attention as an example of the New Haiku,
but actually it is quite old in spirit, and not particularly
good as haiku.

Yameru te ni nosete fuji-busa amari keri

Put into the hands of the invalid,
The wistaria blossoms
Were too much. Takako

When we are ill, music, poetry, art weary the mind.

A flowering branch cannot even be held in the hands
without exhaustion.

X Wj t ffi -3
Mugi-guruma urm ni okurete ugoki izii
The horse starts moving,
The corn-cart
Lags behind. Fukio

This is animate versus “inanimate.”

&
Kuraku atstiku dai-gunshu to hanabi matsu
 ' i ;r-.: ,!!!■!!
i '!
330 The “Best" Modern Haiku
’ :
?• :i: Dark, and hot,

T" And a great multitude,

Waiting for the fireworks. Sanki

m hi!
ns
-r s • iii
This has a Homeric simplicity.
1
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m Shinryo ya tofu odoroku togarashi
Si I
!

;f
-
The new autumn coolness;
The bean-curd is aghast
At the red pepper. Fura
The soft white bean-curd must be astonished by its
« > nllii'; proximity to the hot red pepper.
1i!
11 ijj* ft % #
Mite oreba kokoro tanoshiki suntibi kana
, * i
The charcoal fire;
\w While I am looking at it
I feel pleasure. Soj5
■
This is a faint and mild form of what Wordsworth felt
as a passion, a pianissimo version of something,
;
i i That had no need of a remoter charm
By thought supplied, nor any interest
Unborrowed from the eye.

; {'• -X m (D 4 0 \t li! ^ & 5 U 5 * T

Daibutsu no fuyubi tva yama e utsuri keri
i. The winter sunlight
Has moved from the Great Buddha
To the hill. Tatsuko
This is the Great Buddha at Kamakura. The thin rays
The “Best " Modern Ilaiku 331
of the sun have been lighting up Buddha’s brow and
breast. Now the great statue is all shadow, but the hill
behind it reflects the pale sunshine.
Ml H'j
fllill'

■'!!;;

Chapter XLI
SUMMARY

Haiku since Shiki has been, like the world itself, in a

state of confusion. It may be said, with too much truth,
that history is confusion itself, and indeed none but a
presumptuous nit-wit would attempt to write a history
of anything at all. The present age is however an age
in which we are more conscious of our confusion (and that
of other ages) than ever before, and it is our duty there­
fore to point out the vagaries and inconsequentialities of
the Welt-Geist, and as far as possible resign ourselves to
posing the questions more clearly, giving up all pretence
of answering them.
The pantheism of Hinduism, the mysticism and paradox
of Taoism, the compassion of Buddhism, the severity of
Confucianism, the this-is-it-ness and humour of Zen, the
soft emotion of waka, the exfoliation of renga, the topo­
graphy of Japan, the primitivistic simplicity of Shintoism,
the “peace” of feudalistic tyranny, the feeling of social
change soon to come in the next century, the absence of
any immediately disturbing foreign influence,—and the
haiku of Basho flowered once and for ever, in the six
years from 1688 to 1694, the beginning and the end of
the poetry of the thing in itself:

Mi ni shimite daikon karashi alii no haze

 I
Summary 333
Right to my very marrow,
The radish is so pungent,
The autumn wind blowing.

Besides the “mere” sensation of the “hot” grated radish,

and the chilly wind, each bringing out the “meaning” of
the other, and above all that of the season, there is the
topography, the geo-history. This verse comes in the
Sarashina Nikki, an account of Basho's travel in Nagano
Prefecture in which Basho found the radish unforgettably
strong. Indeed, it is not that Basho wanted to write haiku,
so he travelled all over Japan visiting famous sites and
tasting the special products of the various places. This
is really putting the cart before the horse. Chronologically
also, the fudoki, Jjft±'§2, Descriptions of Towns, Villages,
Rivers, Mountains, Products, Customs, come first, haiku
a thousand years later. These things were felt so keenly,
indeed so “pungently,” the Japanese got so hot, that haiku
had to be written, to let off steam. With Buson and Issa,
and all the host of lesser poets, the fudoki spirit infused
and inspired their work; they were conscious of it, as they
were not, fortunately, of the pantheism and Zen and so
on. However, when we come to the Meiji Era, the spirit
of place, the spirit of time weakens, and haiku with it.
Shiki was a kind of atheist, an agnostic, which is really
a don’t-want-to-know-er. A man of violent poetic energy
must believe in something, even superstition, even Roman
Catholicism. Actually, the best haiku of Basho and Buson
and Issa have little or nothing to do with historic places /'
or famous mountains or special products or local customs.
They are “a pure delight” in the particular thing, quite
apart from romantic or emotional associations, but the
I; Hi
, 334 Summary
:ti IIi; , point is this, that to be wise you must have been a fool,
Hi;! l|||; have been sentimental, have been vulgar, have been cruel,
have been snobbish, have been a savourer of the fudoki.
You can’t transcend such things if you have nothing to
i!i: : 111 transcend. Thus the best old haiku rise out of the fudoki.
The best modern haiku emerge as from a vacuum, or from
I;;n I |'l
the narrow hopes and fears and loving and loathing of
the individual poet. Like Shakespeare, Basho spoke for
ill! humanity, of humanity and by humanity; there is nothing
eccentric in his view of nature, nothing egoistic in his
view of himself. The confusion of our modern times
i! seems greater than ever before because people speak by
ill
iili .
themselves only, not by humanity. Basho is like Thoreau.
He has his own view of life, quite different from everyone
! -1
else, yet it turns out to be God’s view, the really human
V
•! view, a life secretly envied by all men, however strongly
they may deny it.
Having thus indirectly blasted all modern haiku, we
are now in a position to be agreeably surprised by the
wealth of sensitivity and sincerity of the haiku poets
during the last sixty or seventy years. To bring this
clearly before the mind, let us go over the chief names
once more, noting the characteristics of the poets, with
an example of each.
The Meiji Era had still some stability in it, even the
twenty fifth year, when Shiki wrote the following:

Gancho ya mina mioboe no mondokoro

The First Morning of the Year;
I remember them all,
With their family crests. (1892)
Summary 335
The houses themselves were deeply Japanese:

h /i b. /p ic & m ts. b & A H. ip ft

Alataka ni shirakabc narabu trie kana

In the warmth of spring

The white walls
Line the small bay. (1893)

But illness takes us from the general to the particular,

from nature to man:

5 £ — A 4 fffi
Maki wo warn imoto hitori fuyu-gotnori

My younger sister
Chopping the firewood by herself;
Winter confinement. (1893)

Shiki goes back to Nature, a nature which feels no love

for him because he feels no love for it:

U 01 * M m V' X * ffi It 5
Natsu-yama ya kamo waite ishi yokotawaru

The summer mountains;

Clouds welling up,
Stones lying sideways. (1894)

But nature is all we have, and we must look and listen,

that is enough:

Kogarashi ni yoku kikeba cliiji no hibiki kana

Listening intently to the storm,

We hear a thousand and one
Different sounds. (1894)
 336 Summary
How deep is Shiki, how shallow?
m co -M b x fJc if III <o vUi
Donguri no ochite shizumu ya yama no ike
An acorn falls and sinks
1 Into a pool
Ilm ;
ill
In the deep mountains. (1895)

Pi
g i .
There is something invariable in nature, in spite of its
apparent fortuitousness:
■
.
^ $ -\b ts. b -f co - JM
Yugure ya kanarazu asa no hito-arashi
.
' Every day, towards dusk,
The hemp-plants are swept
By a gust of wind. (1896)
;
1 ; One more invariable thing is the flowering of plants,
I medicinal plants; yet another is death:
;
!
: m<o ^ Z '0 L te
'« Hechima saite tan no tsuniarishi hotoke kana
!
The sponge-gourd is in bloom,
i !i ■

Phlegm chokes
.
The Buddha. (1902)
: I
: Koyo reserves for haiku the trivia of life:
li P1! -t * A fc b fi X t £ x>
' ; Kado-snzumi hito ni korarete sliimai keri
: i :
Cooling at the gate,—
*, ! But it’s all up;
A visitor has come. (Before 1903)
!
Depth is potential, but never realised:
!

II
Summary 337
m »; & d -c m < 4® t fri»-t
Ncmuri larilc shibaraku hae to aitaisu

Sleeping my full,
For some time facing each other,
A fly and I. (Before 1903)

Even death is treated as a romantic accident; Koyo’s

death-verse, at the age of thirty-seven:

*E fc If ft U <o T A [111 * Bn 0 t
Shinaba aki-tsuyu no hinu ma zo omoshiroki

To die
While the dew is yet undried,—
That would be meaningful! (1903)

Meisetsu should have been born in the Genroku Era.

He understood very well the nature of haiku, the haiku
of nature, and the way in which nature must be suffused
with humanity:

Asazamu ya mii no nid ni hi no ataru

A cold morning;
Sunshine on the Deva Kings
Of Mii Temple. (After 1897)

A verse that seems to belong to the Tokugawa Period:

Jomon ni cho no tobikau hiyori kana

In the castle gateway.

Butterflies fluttering
In the warm sunshine. (Before 190'
! i l
m
|? ;i'-; ;;l
338 Summary

uW,
!. Mt •

;i!»f
;

r • '• -■ .
Another that has the softness of Basho, not the hardness
of Meisetsu’s teacher, Shiki:

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I . Hatsu semi no chi wo hau osa no shimeri kana
The first cicada,
if i
Crawling on the earth
In the morning moisture. (Before 1909)

! i !
: ® .
i
i
Meisetsu studied Chinese literature, Japanese literature,
and Buddhism, but they are all completely digested into
nature:
Hi;! ?8 ■*> & 86 *
11 Si Onuma ya ashi wo lianaruru satsuki-gumo
11 fj! i
I | j •: s I May rain clouds
Ti Rising from beyond the reeds
(Before 1926)
; Of the great swamp.
ill: i
|
. In the 30th year of Meiji, 1897, the rusticity of most of
1 I
■-

Japan is still unspoiled, and Soseki can write the following:

$c CO Ijr <D ifc m <v =£

11 I
■
Mtigi no aki kuruma no hokori tnuchi no oto

' The autumn of barley; l

The dust of the cart
Cracking the whip. (1897)
1 ilil If i
The “hum of cities” is not so loud yet:
!
nil
h. 36^ A
Hiyayaka ya liito neshizumari tniztt no oto
. ■
1 Summer.
■
 1

Summary 339
Autumn coolness;
People are asleep, and all is quiet:
:
The sound of the flowing water. (1910)
Horses and boats are still the chief modes of locomotion,
and have their own poetry. In the following, they are
in combination:

Uma wo ftine ni nosete yanagi no watashi liana

Getting a horse
Onto a boat,
The ferry by the willows. (1914)

Kyoshi, like Meisetsu, remained true to the traditions

of old haiku, and was thus in danger of its weakness,
which was, and always has been, triviality. Much is
demanded, not unjustifiably, from the reader:

Ftiyu-gare no michi futasuji ni wakare keri

The desolation of winter;
The road through it
Divides into two. (1894)

The haiku poet still keeps, somehow or other, his physical

and spiritual poverty:

m m ic % V' X ft %> D $|
Haikai ni oite konomoshi kabura-jiru
Getting older and older
Writing haiku,
Satisfied with turnip broth. (1902)
r1-
[ ;

340 Summary
i' ii
Sometimes the simplicity of Sappho is thereby attained:

F3 <D T- & n # ft 9 ii>C "A Jft

. i \ || /fa</o wo feo too /io/ja ga yobunari kakui dori
•hi
The mother calls the child
' li Playing at the gate;
ill ■
The mosquito-eating bird. l (1924)
.
Sometimes the poet gazes at one particular thing with an
ii
1
intensity which the Greeks reserved for mankind:

& R k: E o — 3^co 5 h & % &

Aki-kaze ni kusa no hitoha no uchi-furuu

i ii In the autumn wind,

i A single blade of grass
Shudders. (1928)
!j| Kyoshi also has the past constantly in mind:
;
ftp m 1C * fr < S £ * » b b € f
Okuruma ni ushi kakuru sora ya hototogisu

,11 The ox is yoked

To the palace carriage;
A hototogisu cries. (1931)

In Hekigodo we often find a false simplicity which is

the obverse of an excessive desire for novelty:
; ■
t 7l
Horn asaki tnizu wo ivataru ya sagi hitotsu
111
Early spring;
■

A single snowy heron

Wades through the water. (1901)

xThe bat.

I ;
Summary 341

But sometimes the simplicity is of an unvarnished ex­

perience:

- <0 'M O ft ± 1C ft » M < ^ ft

Kono rnichi no fuji ni nariyukit sustiki kana
The pampas grass;
The road through it
Leads to its Mount Fuji. (1905)

With Hekigodo we get long, stumbling, unmusical, more-

than-seventeen-syllabled “haiku” that can hardly be called
hokku, “the first verse,” because each one tries to include
everything within itself:

Ura wa tanbo no sumai no katasumi no hasu karctc iru

At the back of the dwelling there is a paddy-field,
And in the corner, lotus leaves are withering. (1925)

Seisensui also frees haiku of its three hundred-year-old

form. With a great loss there is often some gain:

0c # V' o* £ ^ & £ < b b |oP,ft!)

Saki izuru ya sakura saknra to said tsuranari
These cherry trees beginning to bloom,
Cherry trees near and far, all blooming together.
(1930)
Many potential haiku must have been still-born because
the richness of the material would not accord with the
spiritual and numerical poetic brevity:

m (o % ic & iAL V' x m. tMU *e il

Asa no liikari ni kage hiitc hai idcshi kani
342 Summary

In the morning light

A crab creeps out,
Putting his shadow behind him. (1915)

The modern poet perceives with a particular pleasure

many things the older poets did not, or took for granted:

Takibi kbho moetachiie hito ra damari lari

The bonfire burns away busily;
The people around it are silent. (1916)

Another example of the same thing by Otsuji:

* M o < ]£ O P <0 43 X>

No-asobi ya liiji tsuku kitsa no hi no nioi
Rambling on the moor;
The smell of the sun on the grass
Under my elbow. (Before 1920)

In the last fifty years, haiku and senryu have tended

to come together, to the loss of both; an example by Kijo:

Sabishlsa ni haya-meshi kii ya aid no kure

So lonely,
I had my meal early:
An autumn evening. (Before 1920)

The following, by Akutagawa Ryunosuke, shows how

unpoetical a writer of some genius can be:

Aogaeru onore mo penki nuritate ha

Summary 343

Green frog!
Have you just been
Newly painted? (1918)

The following also, by Suiha, has more irony than Issa,

and less humour:

Donguri no ono ga ochiba ni umore keri

The acorns
Are buried beneath
Their own fallen leaves. (Before 1936) i
■

The next verse, however, by the same author, though

in the modern clumsy style, is in the older tradition, the
profound Japanese egoism, which, at its deepest, reaches
humanity, a divinity far above deity: *

Ochiba fumu ya shibashi suzutne to yiiyakete

Treading the fallen leaves,
Now, for some time, together with the sparrows
And the evening glow. (Before 1936)
The modern attempt to add a new dimension, that of
time, to haiku is fatal to it. The following, by Dakotsu,
illustrates this:

Shikazan no yarna no hada tsumetakute kusaichigo

The extinct volcano,
Cold to the touch;
Wild strawberries. (1935)
 I

i; ill: 344 Summary

i 1;
The popularisation of haiku by Fusei was undesirably
inevitable, but occasionally, to use a suitable vulgarism,
he hits the spot:

si :
^ Ic b 9 Xj&*> L l*
Tent torite hanachishi Jiagi no cda nagaslii
Taking it in the hand,
1 And letting it go,—
How long the branch of the lespedesa!

it
IliJ
The Buddhism of Bosha gave his work a background
which most other haiku poets lacked. Japanese poets
(1942)

'! have always known, by instinct, that the background must

never become the foreground:
i :
9 U'l
to Maimai ya ugo no enko torimodoshi
After the rain is over,
■

The whirligig once more

Draws his halos of light. (1938)

Onomatopoeia is always poetry, in any age, in any place;

by the same poet:
milt 9 £5il<3£<A»ft
% Hatsu-kawazu kiri koro toku chikaku liana
i
if, The first frogs,
li Creek, creek, creek,
From far-off and near. (Before 1941)
Hi
Bosha sometimes combines simplicity and mystery, direct­
ness and metaphor:
% £ X> V' X ^ O 2g fr ft
O too hiite imo no tsuyu tobn koku katia
Summary 345
Wafting its wings of morning light,
The dew flies from the taro leaf
Up into the empty autumn sky. (1933)

From its beginnings haiku sought to express the meaning

of the simplest natural phenomena with the greatest
possible variety. The heat of noon, the cold of mid-winter,
the length of the (spring) day, were felt and communicated
in a hundred, a thousand ways. In the following, by Sojo,
the brightness of the full moon of autumn is praised yet
once more:

m A* fc
Fune no na no tsuki ni yomaruru niinato kana
The name of the ship
In the port can be read
In the light of the moon. (Before 1927)
As said before, the modern poet tries to put every thing
into poetry, or rather, he tries to see the poetry which is
already in every thing, the poetry of which every thing is
composed. Seishi did this especially in regard to European •/
sports, for example:
7s >r - hojglfetoofcotftft
Snkcto no magao nashitsutsu tanoshikere
So serious
The face of the skaters,
Yet so enjoyable! (1931)

Besides sports, there is machinery; a verse by the same

author:
U & fc ff Si <0 IF K X Jfc Z
Natsu-ktisa ni kikansha no shariti kite tomaru
■ 11

m \
Ip
346 Summary
The wheel of the locomotive
Comes and stops

ti
III!!
By the summer grass.
“Culture is not shiny,” neither has it any connection
(1933)

&
ii with cement, but in the following verse Seishi combines
the two in a modern haiku which is perhaps more modern
1:1
than haiku:
W
iIs Ii:
fc* * h )V 7° - <o M t \c t>
Pisutoru ga ptiru no kataki men ni hibiki
t

:
! The signal pistol
Echoes on the hard surface
Of the swimming pool. (1936)

1 But Seishi has an eye also for older, for ancient games:
m
Tako no ito ten ni iva miezu yubi ni miyu
✓ The string of the kite;
Cannot be seen in the sky,
Can be seen at the finger. (1937)
. {
Seishi has an eye like Thoreau’s; it can move with the
■
object:
& o ft u it V' fc tm*
Kara no uzu shidai ni hayaki katatsumnri

The whorl of the shell

Of the snail gets gradually
Faster. (1944)

The two problems of human life are loneliness and

boredom, and they are one problem. Hakyo sees it to
Ijlil exist also in the world of nature, our world of nature.
 I! :
!
'
Summary 347
!
ti f£ M ffl o A* i> i
Ori no tvashi sabishiku narcba hautsu ha mo fI
The caged eagle;
When lonely
He flaps his wings. (1933)

Haiku is the chief way of not being bored, that is, not
being lonely. Sidney Smith once gave a lady two and
twenty recipes against melancholy, “one was a bright fire;
another to remember all the pleasant things said to and
of her; another to keep a box of sugar-plums on the
chimney-piece.” These would belong to jinji, the human
affairs section of haiku. Heaven is the perpetual con­
templation of things, especially those of nature. The grass
in the green field, the colours and shapes of the old stone
wall, and the music of the cold wind along it,—the
“pleasure” of such things deepens with our own ageing,
and increases and enlarges its scope with our reading of
haiku. Thus haiku should be the chief subject in primary
and secondary schools in every country in the world. But
it should be prohibited in the universities, and on no
account should children ever be examined on them, or
forced to explain them. How about my own explanations? v/
Some say they are better than many of the original haiku.
Some say they should be omitted. I myself agree with
both views.
 i i:
;

Chapter XLII
WORLD HAIKU

The latest development in the history of haiku is one

which nobody foresaw,—the writing of haiku outside Japan,
not in the Japanese language. We may now assert with
some confidence that the day is coming when haiku will
be written in Russia (though communistic haiku, like
capitalistic or Christian or Buddhist or atheistic haiku is
a glorious impossibility), in the Celebes, in Sardinia. What
a pleasing prospect, what an Earthly Paradise it will be,
the Esquimaux blowing on their fingers as they write
haiku about the sun that never sets or rises, the pygmies
composing jungle haiku on the gorilla and the python, the
nomads of the Sahara and Gobi deserts seeing a grain of
sand in a world!
But wherever haiku are composed, the problem of the
form must arise. Europeans and Americans have to decide
whether their haiku are to be in rhyming couplets or
triplets, alliterative verse, free verse, what some rude
people call “a dribble of prose,” or in five, seven, five
syllables as in Japanese. As far as the last is concerned,
a strict adherence to 5, 7, 5 syllables in English has
produced some odd translations of Japanese haiku. For
example:
An old pond;
A frog jumps in:
The sound of the water.
This is 3, 4, 5, in English. The following appeared in
 350 World Haiku
No. VII of a Monograph Committee, Los Angeles, 1964:
Old pond, ancient pool:
A frog jumping plunges in:
: Waterish splash-splosh.
■

This is 5, 7, 5, but the last line suggests that Basho

HI himself fell in, and (as was probably actually the case)
could not swim. Even the first line, in order to get five
in syllables, repeats itself, and then is too short, giving the
:
impression of the vocative. A translation of another
M
famous verse:
Bare barren branch on
: Which a crow has alighted: autumn
Nightfall darkening.
I ■
This is a line of 17 syllables, sliced arbitrarily into 5, 7, 5.
The fact is that “syllable” does not have the same mean­
ing for the Japanese, the Romans and Greeks, and the
! English. For us, “a” is a syllable, “clothes” is a syllable.
To push the matter to the extreme, take the following:
In a potato,
Ill Those groans whose forced prayers change nought,
Can never occur.
■i
r This is 5, 7, 5, but to eye and ear, and to the sense of
counting, the 5, 7, 5 has no meaning whatever.
\ i The philosophic significance of 5, 7, 5, in Japanese
syllables, may be this. Seventeen such syllables are one
emission of breath, one exhalation of soul. The division
into three gives us the feeling of ascent, attainment, and
resolution of experience. Five, five, is symmetry; five
seven, and seven five, are asymmetry, double that of
symmetry, which is proper in our geometrical but fortuit-
World Haiku 351
ous universe. The haiku form is thus a simple and yet
deeply “natural” form, compared to the sonnet, blank
verse, and other borrowed forms of verse in English. The
ideal, that is, the occasionally attainable haiku form in
English, would perhaps be three short lines, the second a
little longer than the other two; a two-three-two rhythm,
but not regularly iambic or anapaestic; rhyme avoided,
even if felicitous and accidental. A season word is not
necessary, nor even a season, but is greatly advantageous,
as suggesting one quarter of the year in time.
The following thirty verses are chosen, not altogether
at random, from a forthcoming book of haiku by J. W.
Hackett of San Francisco. They are in no way mere
imitations of Japanese haiku, nor literary diversions. They
are (aimed at) the Zen experience, the realising, the making
real in oneself of the thing-in-itself, impossible to rational
thought, but possible, “all poets believe,” in experience.
Mr Hackett himself writes, in a letter:
I regard “haiku” as fundamentally existential, rather
than literary. Or if you will, as primarily an experience,
rather than a form of poetry. Basho’s statement that:
“Haiku is simply what is happening in this place, at
this moment,” shows that he regarded intuitive experi­
ence to be the basis of Haiku. And Now, his criterion,
is my own.
If this Haiku experience can be expressed in 17
syllables (or even 5-7-5) without padding or syntactical
contrivance, all well and good. If not, then the ex­
perience should be rendered freely, in the manner best
serving its comprehension and effect. The Japanese
masters strayed from 5-7-5, as do many modern
Japanese poets. Certainly, the poet writing in English
is entitled to the same licence, and more__ I use 2
 I
■a
[1 ■

if 1! i World Haiku
8! 352
lines whenever I wish, and there is no doubt that some
Haiku experiences can be more naturally expressed in
I 5 : j |' this way. It seems clear that the whole matter of
i » syllables and lines is an arbitrary one, and should be.
Ii For Haiku is ultimately more than a form (or even a
kind) of poetry: it is a Way—one of living awareness.
Haiku’s real treasure is its touchstone of the present.
11 This, together with its rendering of the Suchness of
ill i things, gives Haiku a supra-literary mission, one of
■

moment.

!i;
i II
:
51;
: GENTLE FALLING LEAF
! YOUR MEANDER. . .
: i HOLDS EVERYTHING.

TWO FLIES, SO SMALL

IT’S A WONDER THEY EVER MET,
ARE MATING ON THIS ROSE.

I
 :

World Haiku 353

SNAIL MAY CREEP HIS WAY,

BUT SEE IIOW HE BINDS WITH SILVER
EACH MOMENT HE LEAVES.

BLOOMING, WITH AN EDGE

ALREADY WITHERING...
THIS CONSTANT DEATH.

THAT OLD EMPTY HOUSE,

NOW SO OVERGROWN WITH YEARS,
IS THE ONLY REAL ONE HERE.
 354 World Ilaihu
:
:
!I Mil i
1! !
ON NEARING THE SURF,
EVERY FOOTPRINT BECOMES
I THAT OF THE SEA,
ili ; i|
:
: In
i
!
i!i}
;
I
' SWEEPING INTO A PAN:
. THE LINE OF DUST
! THAT DEFIES ITS EDGE.
i :i
I'
'
I 1;
!
i !

SOMETIMES THE ODDEST THING,

LIKE THIS ORANGE PIP,
BEGS NOT TO BE THROWN AWAY.

;
■;

!
 V
World Haiku 355

i.
BITTER MORNING:
SPARROWS SITTING
WITHOUT NECKS.
■

i
:
;

THIS WINTRY WIND

TOUCHES THE SAME LEAVES
NEVER. . .AND AGAIN.

BESIDE A NEW GRAVE. • •

THE CRUSHING WEIGHT
OF UNGIVEN LOVE.
r
I fill!
!' I: 356 Wurul Haiku
f iP!
*! ;i i
¥ hi;
CHOPPING A KNOTTY BLOCK. ..
IN EVERY STICK OF KINDLING,
A PART OF ITS SHAPE.
■

li
i * ! iij !
III
i! CITY LONELINESS. . .
Hii ■

! DANCING WITH A GUSTY WIND:

ii- !
YESTERDAY’S NEWS.

1
" !
!ii
i
ii i
!

EVER LINGERING
IN THE TASTE OF THE WALNUT:
DEEP AUTUMN,

i
,j
World Ilaiku 357

j;
SNOW VIEWING. . .
THE SHAPE OF MY LONELINESS, »
EACH WINTER BREATH. .

IN THIS SILENT SNOW,

EACH CRUNCHING STEP ECHOES DRYLY
INTO MY TEETH.

SUMMER VERANDAH. . .
LISTENING TO FLUTTERING BIRDS:
THE CAT’S TAIL.
 I:
;i! 358 World Haiku
III
III NOW CENTERED UPON
THE FLAVOR OF AN OLD BONE,
Ii ! THE MIND OF MY DOG.

:
.
.

1
:
I
HOW RARE
.!
EACH BLOOM BECOMES
WHEN SEEN AGAINST ITS FATE.
I
:

A TINY SPIDER
HAS BEGUN TO CONFISCATE
THIS CUP’S EMPTINESS.
 I

World Haiku 359

THE KITTEN
SO CALMLY CHEWS
THE FLY’S BUZZING MISERY.

:
THESE BARNACLED ROCKS
JUST UNCOVERED BY THE TIDE...
:
HOW BUSY THEY SOUND!

MOVING SLOWLY THROUGH

AN OLD, ABANDONED BEACH HOUSE.
SHADOWS OF THE MOON.
360 World Haiku

WHILE READING THIS SUTRA,

I BEGAN TO LAUGH.. .
WITHOUT KNOWING WHY.
#

HALF OF THE MINNOWS

WITHIN THIS SUNLIT SHALLOW
ARE NOT REALLY THERE.

DEEP WITHIN THE STREAM

THE HUGE FISH LIE MOTIONLESS,
FACING THE CURRENT.
World Haiku 361

NOW—EVEN FILLED WITH PAIN

FROM THIS THORN IN MY FINGER—
IS SO GOOD TO FEEL!

!
:
I
RANDOM FLIES MEET,
CLING TOGETHER, AND FALL BUZZING
!
INTO THE RANK GRASS. ;

THIS GARTER SNAKE

GOES IN AND OUT OF THE GRASS
AT THE SAME TIME!
362 World Ilaiku

DENTS FROM MY NAIL

LEFT DEEP AROUND THIS BITE,
RELIEVE ITS MADNESS!

THIS LEAF TOO,

ITS COLORS EATEN INTO LACE,
FLOATS ON THE STREAM.

In these excellent verses, occasionally there is sensation

only; more often there is too much ostensive, that is,
overt thought. The problem for haiku in any language
as for life itself in any age, is how to put thought com­
pletely into sensation, how to make sensation thought-full.
In addition,—and this has only too often been forgotten
by the Japanese haiku poets themselves,—sensation must
be intense, though not violent, the thinking all-inclusive
and subtle, not parochial and complicated. But after all,
which is more important, to write (haiku) or to live?
Thoreau answers:
My life has been the poem I would have writ,
But I could not both live and utter it.
World Haiku 363
Which is more important, to love a particular animal, and
all of them, or to understand Zen? If we answer that
they are the same thing, this is true, though how many
people in the world know even this? But it is much more
true, it is more Zen to answer, “To love a particular
animal.” It is this which makes a life an unwritten poem.
Writing haiku, and the desire for (more and more) en­
lightenment is the last infirmity of noble mind. We must
not write haiku, we must not write, we must not live, to
fulfil ourselves, or to share our experiences with others.
We must not aim at immortality or even timelessness;
we must not aim. Infinity and eternity come of themselves
or not at all. “God first loved us.” Wordsworth once
more:
Think you, of all this mighty sum
Of things forever speaking,
That nothing of itself will come.
But we must still be seeking?

:
 !’•

?Hi
i m
k!

1
 INDEX
aim of life, II 307 Beowulf, I 29
Akio, II 251 birds, II 340, 343
Akutagawa, II 342 Blake, I 21, II 188
alliteration, I 237 Boitsu, I 71
Anglo-Saxon poetry, I 19 Bokudd, I 195
animals, II 339, 340 Bokuya, II xxxv
animism, I 8, 232, II xvii Bon, II 249
Aoi, II 325 Boncho, I 173, 192, II xxxvi
Arnold, M., I 418, II 44 Book of Privy Counselling, I 30
Aro, II 257 ff. Book of Songs, II xviii
Atsuyuki, II 315 Boro, I 252
Awaji-jo, II 303 Bdsha, II 272 ff.
Ayatari, II 305 Bridges, Robert, II 134, 270
Azuma Mondo, II xi Browning, I 38, 221, 411, II 222
Browning, Mrs., I 219
Bach, II xxvi, lii Brugel, I 168
Baisei, I 74 Buchanan, I 3
Baishitsu, II 17 Buddhism, I 10, 16, 36, 40,57,
Bakunan, II 250 70, 101, 114, 115, 117, 119,
Bakusui, I 229 133, 146, 148, 156, 161, 163,
Banko, I 205 164, 171, 175, 193, 212, 214,
Basho, I 13, 21, 24, 26, 51, 74, 216, 219, 285, 295, 302, 314,
(Chap. VIII) 105, 131, 138, 318, 320, 354, 359, 362, 367,
149, 177, 167, 189, 190, 197, 373, 375, 376, 387, 388, 389,
200, 243, 284, 285, 316, 350, 390, 408, 415, II 7, 72, 73,
351, 352, 417, II vii, ix, xiv, 102, 150, 152, 158, 179, 199,
xxix, xxxvi, xlvi, 22, 23, 24, 216, 262, 264, 270, 279, 282,
26, 29, 32, 140, 153, 186, 191, 284, 287, 305, 326, 344
278, 334 Bunson, I 229
beauty, I 277 Burns, II 27, 33
B^cquer, II 188 Buson, I 3, 24, 173, 203, (Chaps.
Beethoven, II xxvi XV & XVI) 243 ff., 351, 355,
beggars, II 287 II xxxvii, 23, 24, 25, 27, 29,
 iI
dii 366 Index
i ■

I 33, 36 ff., 77, 92,125, 139, 165,

167
Confucianism, I 10, 15
Confucius, I 99
Btison and Kito, II 35 Conrad, I 402, II xxvi
Cowper, I 32, 274, II 112
il Campion, I 2 Crabbe, I 18. 28, 33
Carlyle, I 101, II xxiv crabs, II 342
Carroll, L., I 137, Cromwell, I 294
! ;mt ■ Chaucer, II 312 crucifixion, II 278
.
Chesterton, II 134 Cuckoo Song, I 29, 222
Chibo, II xlvii
ii Chigetsu, I 194, 207 Dakotsu, II 162, 324
Chikashige, II 58, 68 Danrin School, II 145, 146
1ii i! Chikurei, II 144 Dansui, I 94
Chine-jo, I 217 Dante, II xxvi, lii, 313
yi l! Chinese, I 262
Chinese poetry, I 17, II 316
Davies, W. H., I 331
death, I 23, 63, 65, 71, 72, 73,
!
Chinoiserie, I 108 88, 89, 92, 107, 132, 140, 148,
Chinseki, see Shado 150, 157, 160, 180, 187, 196,
■
Chinshi, II xliv 199, 201, 218, 322, 346, 401,
Chiryu, II xlviii 426, 427, II xix, 15, 75, 115,
Chiun, I 53 135, 151, 187, 201, 247, 249,
Chiyo-jo, I 218, II vli, 319 251, 252, 260, 262, 266, 271,
;
Chiyo-ni, I 168 280, 282, 298, 445
Chdfu, II 297 death-verses, see death
1 Choha, II 314 delicacy, I 109
: Chojiro, I 95 Dengyd Daishi, II x
Chora, I 319 Den-jo, II li
Chdryu, II xxxii Denpuku, I 347, II xxxvii
Chosho, I 149 Dickens, I 87, II xxiv
Chbso, II xlvii Dickinson, E., II 159
Chosui, I 242 Dosetsu, I 75
Christ, I 10, II 218
Chuangtse, I iii, 234, II x, 149 eagle, II 347
Clare, I 25, 34, 38, 50, 99, 144, Eckhart, I 353
235, 317, 419, 420, II 225 Eiji, II 70
Coleridge, I 12, 17, 38, 266, II Emerson, I 47, 147, 329, 395
431 epic, I 108
Collins, II 112 Etsujin, I 167
 I

Index 367
Flecker, II 82 Genshi, II xlviii
Forty-Seven Ronin, I 131 Genzaburo, II 294
Four S’s, II 215, 240 Ghost Bird style, I 238
Francis, St., I 386 Ginko, II 7
Freeman, II 196 Gochu, II xliii
Freud, I 101 Gomei, I 341, II xxxviii, 288
frogs, II 343, 344 Gonsui, I 94
Frost, R., I 104, 303 Goshikizumi, I 239
fudoki, II 333 Gray, T., I 291, II 187
Fuhaku, II 1 Green Knight, I 198
Fujio, II 320 Gusai, I 52, II xiv
Fujiwara Atsu, II x Gyodai, I 321 ,
Fujiwara Sadaie, I 44 Gyosui, II 230 V ( }
Fujiwara no Sanesada, I 80
Fukaka, I 238 haiga, II xxvii
Fukio, II 227, 322, 329 haikai, I 45, II 60
Fuko, I 88 “ haiku," II xi
Fukoku, II I Haiku and Haikai, I 13
Fukoku, II xxxvii Haiku Bunrui, II 102
Fukyo, II 74 Ilaiku Kansho, II 321
Funeral Song, II xix Hajime, II 319, 324
Fura, II 171, 330J Hajin, I 203, 237
Furuike Asei, II xxxv Hakko, II 243
Furu-ike ya, I 11 Hakuchin, II 316
Fusei, II 165 Hakusen, II 247, 288, 295
Fusei, II 344 Hakuu, II 246
Fuson, II 304 Hakyo, II 244, 248, 253, 346
Hall, J., I 352
I
Gaki, II 318 Hardy, I 37, 386, II 114, 166,
games, II 346 193, 315
Ganshitsu, II xlv Haritsu, I 199
I Geizan, II 296 Hasen, II 72
Gekkei, II 8 Hasuo, II 286
Gekkoshi, II 288 Ilatsutaro, II 298
Gekkyo, I 341 Hazlitt, I 275
Genji Monogatari, I 137, 397 Heaven, II 347
Genjuro, II 306 Heikc Monogatari, I 234
Gensatsu, I 76 Heine, I 350
368 Index

Ilekigodo, I 159, 261, II 189 ff. Ichirinso, II 281

340 Ichiro, II xlvii
Hemingway, II 270 Ichiwa, II 71
Henry, O., II 151 Ichu, 82
Herbert, I 31 illness, II 315
Herrick, I 327 insects, II 337, 344
Hesse, Hermann, II 184 Inutsukuba, II 54
Hiroshi, II 298 lnutsukubaslul, I 58
Ilisago, II 323 Ippatsu, I 205
Hisajo, II 232, 326 Ippekird, II 202'
Hitokoto-nushi, I 116 Ishu, I 69
Hodgson, Ralph, II 263 Issa, I 89, 131, (Chaps. XXI
Hdjdki, I 307 —XXXII) 349 ff., II xxxiv,
Hokuro, II 286 xxxvii, xl, xlv
Hokushi, I 169 Issekiro, II 204
Hokuun, II 310 Issetsu, II 71, 73
Homer, I 135, 315, II lii, 271, Issho, II 64
330 Isso, II 289
Hood, I 61 Ito, II 302
Horace, II xxiv Itto, II 282, 291
Horo, II 19 Izen, I 108, 177
Hosai, II 158, 178, 181, 185
Hosaku, II 242 Jakun, II xxxiv
Hosha, II 200, 297 Japaneseness, II 131
hosomi, II viii Jefferies, R., I 154
Housman, II 185 Jiboku, II 74
Hugo, Victor, II 317 jinji, II 323, 347
humour, I 23, 45, 57, 109, 278, Jizoson, II 303
II 55 Jofu, II xlix
Hunt, Leigh, II 89 Johnson, Dr., I 135, II 208
Huxley, A., II 184 Joso, I 151, 227, 317, II xxix
Hyakuri, II xliv Joyd, II 295
Hyakuyo-jo, II 301
Hyakuchi, I 342 Kafugen, II 293
Hyoka, II xxxiii Kaga, II 318
Iiagekiyo, I 81
Ichiku, I 345 Kagyo, II xlvi
Ichio, II 285 Kaito, II 312
Index 369

Kakci, I 182, II 71 Kokinsku, I 74, 128, II 53

Kako, II xli, xxxv Kokon Wakashu, II x
Kamakura, II 322 Kokyo, II 298
kamiko, I 237 Kokyo, II xxxiii
Kampei, II 300 Kokyu, II 304
Kana-jo, I 216 Kooku, II xxxv
Kanajo, II 323 Kosanjin, II 307
Kanki, II 69 Kosetsu, II 319
Kanro, II 143 Koto Mondai, I 226
Kanselsu, II 71 Koyo, II 101, 145, 336
Kanzan, I 177 Koyu-ni, II 13
Kasho, II 282 Kusatao, II 216, 248, 322, 327
Kasui, II 313 Kyoho, II 297
katauta, I 345 Kyokusui, I 201
Keats, I 24, 35, 50, 95. 209, Kyorai, I 144, 187, 207, 227,
236, 270, 367, II 21, 129, 225, 316, II vi, vii, xxxii, xxxiv,
314 xxxvi
Keion, II 157 kyorenga, I 41
Keira, II xliii Kyoroku, I 140, 157, 191, II
Kenji, II 327 xlviii, 34
Kensai, II 50 Kyoshi, I 263, II 105, 116 ff.,
Kenzo, II 307 152, 207, 209, 215, 244, 321,
Kierkegaard, I 23 326, 339
Kigin, I 72 Kyuhachi, II 312
Kiin, I 242 Kyusha, II 303
Kijd, II 262, 342
Kikaku, I 131, 140, 215, 228, Lamb, I 275
247, 304, II xii, xxxvi, xlii, Laotse, I 15
xliv, xlvii, 63 Lawrence, D. H., I 3, 37, 113,
Kisei, I 104 420, II 121, 205, 219, 261, 306,
Kiseishi, II 292 312
Kisoku, II xlv Lear, I 237
Kisu, II xlviii Li Panling, II xxi
Kito, I 309, II 35, 36 ff. Luchi, II xx
Koei, II 69 Lyly, I 93
Koi, II 308
kojusan, I 133 makoto, I 97
Koka, II 58 Mansfield, K., I 257, 310,
 1

370 Index

400, II 14 Mucho, II 1
Manydshu, I 17, 40, II 81, 215, Mudo, II 308
223 Mujin, II 290
Maneishi, II 302 Mumonkan, II 22, 137

II Marlowe, II xxiv
Marvell, Andrew, II 179
Masaaki, Asukai, I 118
Munemigiri, I 53
mushitt, I 42
Mutamagaiva, I 2
Masafusa, II xxxviii
::: Masahide, I 108, 200, Naozasu, II 73
I Masanobu, II 58 Naruo, II 308
Masao, II 312 nature, II 335

!
!i ' ■

i
Masayori, II 59
Masefield, I 37
New Haiku, II 239
Nissho, II 289, 317
i Maugham, II 215 Nozarashi Kiko, I 124, II 65
Meimei, I 340 numeribushi, II 70
: Meisetsu, I 256, II 106, 108 ff.,
" 337 objectivity, I 169, 267
Michihiko, I 326, II 11, 156 Oemaru, I 343, II 1
% Midori-jo, II 235 Ogyu Sorai, II xxii
it i Millet, II 199, 284, 287
Milton, I 18, 20, 29, 58, 269,
Oi no Kobumi, I 114, 115, 120
Oi no Susa mi, I 46, 47
II 338 Okarakasa, I 67
Miman, II 68 Okaishi, II 313
Minashiguri, II vi Okyo, II 8
Mitoku, I 76 Onitsura, I (Chap. VII) 96 ff.,
Mitsushige, II 70 110, II xliii, xlix
Mogan, I 231 onomatopoeia, I 6, 24, 165, 179,
Mokkoku, II 267 180, 201, 244, 247, 261, 275,
ii Mokudo, I 229 276, 277, 279, 389, II 110, 130,
Mokusetsu. I 202 136, 184, 192, 195, 257, 259,
i.j
Monro, Harold, II 7 268, 277, 285, 295, 319, 344
Montgomery, Alexander, I 31 Ontei, II 325
Morichika, II 69 Otokuni, I 194
Morinaga, II 59 Otomo Yakamochi, I 17
Moritake, I (Chap. Ill) 54 ff., Otsuji, II 140, 342
II 54, 56, 57 Otsuro, II 316
i Morris, J., II xxiv Oyama Sumita, II 173
ii
Mozart, II xxvi
Index 371
Pater, I 244, II 224 14, 100
pathetic fallacvl 111 Roten, I 88
Patmore, Coventry, II 286 Rotsu, I 184, II viii
personal and impersonal, I 3 Rousseau, II 163
Phillips, Bernard, I 4 Rubaiyat, II 180
picturesqueness, 109 rugby, II 323
poetry, I 27 Russia, I 152, II 300, 310
poetry, nature of, II 102 Ryo, II 300, 317
Pope, I 27, 32, II 117 Ryohin, I 225
poverty, II 339 Ryoson, II 301
Powys, II 185 Ryota, I 226, 333
puns, I 58, 60, 62, 64, 66, 74, RyStai, I 345
81, 86, 412 Ryoto, I 180
Ryotoku, I 76
Raizan, I 89 Rydwa, see Shiseki
Ran, II 312 Ryuho, I 67, II xxx
Rangai, II xlix, 19 Ryukyo, I 241
Ranko, I 337
Ranran, I 199 sabi, II vii
Ransetsu, I 139, 226, II xxx Sadatoki, II 70
Reihaku, II xxxiv Saigin, 83
Reiho-jo, II 303 Saigyo, I 79, 259, 279, II 179
Reiyoshi, II 168 Saikaku, I 86, 344, II 328
renga, II xiii, 47, 103X Saimaro, I 92, II 74
Rengetsu-ni, II xxix Saimu, I 73, II 57
Renshi, I 240 Sampu, I 156, II xlvi, 61
Rikyu, II viii Sanki, II 247, 330
Rimsky Korsakov, II 300 Sanrin, II 61
Rinka, II 260, 325 Santoka, II Chap. XXXII, 161 —
Rinzai, II ix Sanzoshi, I 183
Rito, II xxxviii Sappho, I 28, II 340
Riyu, I 190 Saraskina Nikki, II 333
Rogetsu, II 150 Sarumino, I 173
RSka, 195 Sasamcgoto, II xi
Roseki, II 143 Seafarer, I 29
Rosen, I 186 Seian, II 59
Rosen, II xlv Seibi, II xlvi, 1, 431
Rossetti, Christina, I 258, II Seifu-jo, I 351, II 13
 HU.

372 Index

Seiho, II 207, 215, 326 Shigetomo, II 59

Sciho, II 243 Shigeyori, I 69, II 57, 69
Seira, I 346 Shihaku, II 298
Seisei, II 115, 327 Shiho, I 204, II xlvi
j : Seisensui, II 174, 193 ff., 341 Shihoda, II 138
Seisetsu, II 262 Shiin, II 317
Seishi, II 207, 223, 244, 305, Shiki, I 3, 175, 185, 207, II
il": 323, 345 xxxix, xli, xlii, xliii, (Chaps.
Seisho, II 70 XXV, XXVI, XXVII) 21 ff.,
Seison, II 208 144, 333, 334
Seisui, II 292 Shikd, I 161
. Sekifu, II 13 Shikunro, II 287
Sekitei, II 168, 171 Shikyu, II xlviii
i Sekito, II 299 Shimei, II 150, 3C0
Shingi, II xliv
sendoka, II 69
Senkaku, I 237 Shinkei, II xi, 50
i! Senna, I 191 Shinkokinshii, I 51, 79, II xiv.

I senryu, I 52, 132, 153, 184, 233,

234, 238, 262, 278, II 118, 160,
296
Shinso, II 70
342 Shinto, I 10
sensation, I 7, 38, 70, 172, II Shintoku, I 184
xxxi ff., 313, 345 shiori, II viii
^ Sensuiro, II 289 Shirao, I 326
Sentoku, I 238 Shiro, II xxxiv, xxxix, 2
Sesshu, I 169, II 120 Shiseki, I 241
Setsujin, II 314 Shisen, I 104
Shachiku, II 148 Shishin Mondb, II viii
Shado, I 186, II 34 Shiya, II 72
Shakespeare, I 110, 133, 254, Shizan, II xliv
396, 422, 427, II xxvi, 99, Shizensai Hokku, I 47
169, 198 Shizuno-jo, II 232, 234
Shaw, Bernard, I 405 Shofu-ni, I 225
Shelley, I 34, 44, 198, 251, 331, Shoha, I 122, 314, II 49, 52,
- 386 53, 67
=
shibumi, II ix Shohaku, I 181, II xv, li
Shida, II xxxviii Shoi, I 84
Shido, I 231 Shokeishi, II 299
Shiei, II 318, 320 Shosen, II li

I
 Index 373
Shou, II 20 Soshu, II 2-15
Showa, II 72 Soshun, II 69
Shozan, I 347 Sosui, I 240
Shuhei. II 309 Soten, II 291
Shukoryo, II 292, Soy5, II 49
Shumpa, II 8 Spengler, I 258
Shunichi, II 308 spring passing, I 260
Shunko, II xliii Stevenson, I 37, 102, 349, 414,
Shunsai, I 188 II 159
Shuoshi, II 207, 244, 254 still life, I 108
Shurindo, II 294 Sugawara Michizane, I 61
Shushiki, I 214 Suiha, II 132, 302, 343
Shushin, I 72 Suika, II lxvii
Shuson, II 250 Suia, I 231
Skelton, I 30 Suju, II 208
Smith, Sidney, II 347 Sukenaka, II 72
snails, II 346 Sute-jo, I 210
Sobaku, II 8, 51, 52 symbolism, II xxiv
Sdchd, II 11, 51
Soda, I 188 Tadashi, II 296
Sogan, I 239 Tadatomo, I 75
Sogi, I (Chap. II) 46 ff., 55, II Taigi, I 243, 254, (Chap. XVII)
v, xv, 51 289 ff., 313, II xxxiii, xxxv
Soin, I (Chap. V) 78 ff., II 61, Tairo, I 340
62 Taizd, II 311
Saja, II 240, 320, 330 Takako, II 236, 237, 328, 329
Sakan, I (Chap. Ill) 54 ff., II Takamasa, I 84
53, 55, 56, 57, 67 Takashi, II 229
Sokushi, II xlv Takeji, II 212
Sokya, II 20 Takemi, II 309
Sakyu, II xlii, 18 Takeo, II 270
Songi, I 395, II 13 Takeshi, II 172
Sono-jo, I 212, II xxxiii Tamon, II 286
Sora, I 197 Tantan. I 203, 343, II xlix
Sosei, II 251 Tatsuko, II 237, 239, 330
Saseki, II xxxiii, 151, 338 Tatsunosuke, II 301
Sasetsu, II 49 Tayo-jo, II 15
Sashi, see Chuangtse Tennyson, I 23, 26, 37, 38, 275
 .11

374 Index

:f 315, 423, II xxxii, 296

Tentoku, II xxxvi, also see
Ujitoshi, II 71
Uko, I 177

f Sentoku
Tessai, II xxix
unconventionality, I 109
Unkaku, 11 1
Teiga, II 437 (Unknown), II 49, 50, 51, 58, 68
Teijo, II 238 Upanishads, I 16
> Teishitsu, I 70 ftshin, I 42, II v
- Teitoku, I (Chap. IV) 64 ff., 73, Utoshi, II 245
II 58, 60, 68

I:lit: i
Thomson, I 32, 287
Thoreau, I 3, 7, 14, 21, 35, 100,
Vaughan, I 2, 10, 21, 31, 97
verse sequences, II 223, 246
110, 111, 117, 135, 157, 258, Virgil, I 20
272, 297, 340, 342, 352, 365,
369, II 5, 21, 78, 92, 104, 133, ivabi, II viii
: 174, 193, 261, 346 Wakatai Jisshu, II x
Toemmei, I 18, 25, 264, II xiv, Wakan Roeishu, I 61, 65, 247
XX waki-ku, II xv
Toho, I 183, II xlii War, The, II 252
Tokoku, I 116, 193 Watsujin, II 2
!; Tokugen, I 72 White, of Selborne, I 20, 33
Tomoji, II 250 Winchelsea, I 182
*
Torin, I 119 Winner and Waster, I 30
Tosa Nikki I 310 Wolfe, II 112
Tosei, I 106, 122, II xxxviii women writers, I (Chap. XIII)
Toshi, II 252 207 ff.
: Toshiko, II 328 wonder, I 322
Toshinao, II 71 Wordsworth, I 9, 11, 13, 18, 23,
Toshio, II 326 26, 27, 39, 50, 60, 75, 117,
Toshisen, II xxi 121, 124, 127, 160, 180, 202,
Toso, II 297 226, 230, 266, 282, 293, 303,
Toten, II 308 305, 323, 381, 407, 412, 416,
I Toun, II xxxii 419, 426, II i, xi, xx, 104, 134,
Toyojo, II 138 155, 156, 170, 178, 238, 239,
tsugi-uta, I 41 261, 291, 309, 317, 327, 330
Tsukubashit, I 43, 52, II xiv Wordsworth, Dorothy, I 34, 93,
Tsunenori, I 85 312, II 79
Tsurezuregusa, I 75, 253
Turner, II 217 Yaei, II 311
Index 375

Yaezakura, II 285 Yoshiro, II 293, 295

Yah a, I 165, 227 yugen, II ix
Yakamochi, I 41 Yuhei, I 88
Yakei, II 323 Yuya, I 66
Yamei, I 206
Yanagidaru, I 262 Zen, I 4, 25, 55, 72, 110, 139,
Yasui, I 194 143, 151, 153, 175, 206, 237,
Yawa, II 211 254, 256, 275, 292, 377, II
Yayu, I 232, II xxxix, xl, xli, xxii, xxvi, xxviii xxix, xliv,
1, 121 21, 125, 175, 247, 287, 299,
Yofu, II 316 304, 332
Yori, II 302 Zenjido, II 243 i
Yorie, II 232, 235 Zenna, I 52 !
Yoshimoto, II xiv

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