Before thee proudly may lay bare,
Cross-questioning each by generous Common-sense;
As one who searching many a beach
Selects and stores the best from each.
Thus act, and in futurity
Thy country's rational idol thou wilt be;
The ancient splendors of Japan
Will dwindle to a painted fan,
And the rich flowers of all her Kings,
Beside thy fruits, be childish things!
Richard Hengest Horne.
THE SAILING OF FRANCIS XAVIER.
HEN to Japan, the far distant,
Thought this man of God to go,
All assailed him with persistent
Words of warning and of woe.
Wind and weather, seas and surges,
Painted they before his eyes;
Each some misadventure urges,
Each some peril prophesies.
Silence! Speak not of the bitter
Tempest, nor of winds and seas,
Never Hero yet, nor Ritter,
Cared for such child-play as these.
Let the wind blow and the weather;
Flame of love by blowing grows;
Let the billows rage together;
Straight to heaven the billow goes.
Hey, then, leave the vain endeavor
To affright my soul with dread,
Soldier's heart, or Martyr's, never
Either powder feared or lead.
Spear and shaft and naked glaive or
Cannon, pistol, powder, all
Only make the soldier braver,
To the prize of honor call.
Let the wind and weather wrangling
Whet their horns in revel rout;
Let the billows growling, jangling,
Toss the shattered wrecks about!
On the briny field may riot
North and South and East and West,
He whose heart within is quiet
Never can be robbed of rest.
Who would not the sea confronting
Cross its thousand waves content,
If with bow and arrows hunting
Many thousand souls he went?
Who at any wind would tremble
Or its dripping pinions fear,
If he could but souls assemble;
Souls, beyond all measure dear?
Ho, ye billows strong and stately!
Ho, thou strong and lordly wind!
Never will I bow sedately;
To withstand you is my mind!
Souls, yes, souls I must have! Straightway
Saddle me my wooden steed;
We must from the harbor's gateway
Gallop o'er the waves with speed.
Friedrich Spee. Tr. Anon.
THESE shores forsake, to future
A world of islands claims thy happier view, Where lavish Nature all her bounty pours, And flowers and fruits of every fragrance showers. Japan behold; beneath the globe's broad face Northward she sinks, the nether seas embrace Her eastern bounds; what glorious fruitage there, Illustrious Gama, shall thy labors bear!
How bright a silver mine! when heaven's own lore From Pagan dross shall purify her ore.
(RADLED and rocked in Eastern seas,
The islands of the Japanese
Beneath me lie; o'er lake and plain
The stork, the heron, and the crane
Through the clear realms of azure drift,
And on the hillside I can see
The villages of Imari,
Whose thronged and flaming workshops lift
Their twisted columns of smoke on high,
Cloud-cloisters that in ruins lie,
With sunshine streaming through each rift,
And broken arches of blue sky.
All the bright flowers that fill the land,
Ripple of waves on rock or sand,
The snow on Fujyama's cone,
The midnight heaven so thickly sown
With constellations of bright stars,
The leaves that rustle, the reeds that make
A whisper by each stream and lake,
The saffron dawn, the sunset red,
Are painted on these lovely jars ;
Again the skylark sings, again
The stork, the heron, and the crane
Float through the azure overhead,
The counterfeit and counterpart
Of Nature reproduced in Art.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.
PIERCING the lofty sky,
Yonder Amakagu soars;
From whose brow the mists are lifting,
In the fulness of the spring;
Rustling mid the pines the wind
Ruffles yonder pool's smooth bosom,
And of every grove and thicket
Are the dark-massed shadows flecked
By the mountain-cherry's bloom;
While along the strand are heard
Shrilly cries of circling gulls,
Mingling with the whirring din
Of a flight of early wild-duck;
And there cometh o'er the waters,
In a rudderless frail bark,
Onwards drifting oarless urged,
In uncheered solitude,
Our Emperor's mighty heir.
From the Japanese. Tr. Anon.
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