The Spirit of Japanese Poetry

THE Japanese poem is the dewdrop that holds a rainbow in its heart. In order to enjoy it, one must take the rainbow out of the dewdrop and spread it across the firmament. Japanese poems are very short. The tanka is made up of thirty-one syllables, and the hokku has only seventeen. A very small tapestry, indeed, upon which to weave one’s dream. Consequently the poets of Japan must depend largely upon the art of suggestion. They must create, not the flowers that are already in bloom, but the seeds which the readers themselves can grow into flowers. When reading Japanese poems, therefore, one must see not only what is expressed, but what is left unsaid. He must be not only a reader, but a creator. Out of the lines and colors given by the poet he must create a complete picture. To read only what is expressed in a Japanese poem is to see merely the beginning of the trail that will lead us into the valley of dancing blossoms.

This is one of the most fascinating features of Japanese poetry. It is true that poems of this type are inclined to be abstruse. At least they lack directness of appeal. But at the same time they offer a sort of adventure not found in poems of more obvious kind. When we are busy, or tired, we like to have dreams made for us; but when we have time, and are active, we like to make our own dreams. The poems that are obvious are like the puzzles that are already solved. They deny us the joy of seeking and creating — the very thing which makes poetry so superbly delightful.

Words, after all, are such inadequate things. They are like the net by which the proverbial fisherman tried to capture the moon. Millions and millions of words we may use, but we cannot re-create even the sunlight that glistens on a spider web, or the moonbeam that shimmers in crumbling dewdrop. All we can do is merely to suggest — merely to build up the stem upon which the flower of beauty is to grow. Therefore the poem that is like the unknown bird, singing unseen in the heart of blossoms, gives us a greater satisfaction than the one in which all is expressed. The flowers we have grown ourselves mean more to us than those we have bought, because we have put so much of ourselves in them. So with poetry. The chief charm of reading poetry lies in the fact that it enables us to disclose the inapparent beauty out of the apparent reality.

Japanese poetry is the record of emotion, and not of facts. Being emotional, the Japanese are most interested in the feel of things. When a Japanese is about to compose a poem, he observes his object until a certain definite feeling comes and crystallizes in his mind. Then he interprets that emotion, using whatever part of the object is necessary to attain the purpose. This means that the material he uses in his poem may be entirely different from what he has observed. Suppose he is writing a poem about a storm scene. He sees the lightning that daggers flying clouds, the wind that uproots towering pine trees, and the roaring billows that batter against frowning cliffs. But the thing he uses in his poem may not be the lightning, or the wind, or the billows, but a single leaf which whirls among driving rain. In order to appreciate a Japanese poem, therefore, one must see, not how true it is to nature, but how true it is to the feel of nature.

Among the types of emotion that are interpreted in Japanese poetry, the feel of the seasons is the most interesting. In Japan the four seasons are very definitely marked. One can never mistake spring for autumn, or autumn for winter. And each of these seasons inspires us with a certain feeling. Spring with misty moonlight and dreaming blossoms, summer with skylarks and green shadows, autumn with clear water and flaming maples, winter with clear sunlight and silvery plains — each gives us a distinctive feeling of its own. This feeling the poets of Japan strive to weave into their poems.

This effort to portray the feel of seasons is most pronounced in the poems of the hokku type. Few subjects of hokku poems arc seasonless; that is, most of them belong to one of the four seasons. In the book on the technique of hokku poetry, they are classified under Spring, Summer, Autumn, and Winter. Beginners in hokku composition are required to respect this classification, and to place their subjects in a proper season unless there is a special reason for not doing so. Being great lovers of nature, the Japanese attach no small importance to the season, which is, in a way, an expression of nature’s mood.

Japanese poets are more or less pantheists. They consciously or unconsciously believe in the existence of will behind all things and incidents. To them the dewy blossoms that dance in the sunlight are not mere blossoms, but the soul of spring come to express its irrepressible joy. The bird which sings at the grave of a loved one is not a mere bird, but the spirit of the loved one come to comfort the bereaved. A childish superstition, one may say, but it is this very superstition that gives nearness and life to the things they portray. If we look upon a tree as a mere tree, it will be a mere tree; but if we regard it as something that possesses and is moved by human will and human feeling, it will become a living symbol of beauty. Much can be said for and against pantheism; but in the domain of art and literature, where harmony is the most important consideration, this doctrine, which regards the world, not as a jumble of dissociated and unrelated matters, but as a great ensemble of interrelated and interdependent things and incidents, has usefulness which more than redeems its shortcomings.

Another thing that we must remember in order to understand Japanese poems correctly is that the Japanese have a different background from ours, and that, as a result, they have different ideas about things. Take, for instance, their idea of a candy man. The image that the term ‘candy man’ conjures up before our eyes is that of a corpulent, beak-nosed, black-moustached individual, immaculately dressed in a white coat and white cap. He carries a tray suspended from his bulging neck, and hawks his wares with a booming voice. We do not even suspect that behind this term as used by the Japanese stands a kindly old man who shuffles along quiet streets, blowing on his tiny reed trumpet and making exquisite candy toys for his little customers.

So with their idea of a cowboy. The picture which the name ‘cowboy’ brings to us is that of a hard-fisted, square-shooting exponent of Western blood and thunder, instead of a farm boy who rides home on a gentle ox as the moon comes up from beyond the field of pampas grass, and who leaves the note of his reed pipe lingering in the gathering mist. Even with such a thing as a bell their idea differs. The bell of Japan is made of green bronze, and is struck with a huge wooden hammer. Instead of clear, metallic sound, it gives a deep, mellow sound, which is somewhat like the roar of waves in a hollow, it inspires infinite sorrow instead of joy, and indescribable loneliness instead of serenity. We must remember this difference, and try to look at things with the eyes of the Japanese, or we may commit the mistake of sprinkling water on a straw flower.

So much for the way to appreciate Japanese poems. Let us now turn to the poems themselves. We have learned how the Japanese bell looks and sounds. Let our first example be the poem of a temple bell.

An old bell hangs in a weatherstained bell tower. Long yellow grass tangles on the roof of the bell tower; thousands of ivy vines hide its pillars, and deep moss covers its decaying steps. From the eaves of this ancient tower swings the huge bronze bell, green with a great age, a dragon coiled at the crest.

An old priest comes to the tower. His tall emaciated body is clad in a long black robe, and his lean fingers are bent over a brown rosary. As he slowly ascends the mossy steps, he seems to be the soul of the evening shadows, which are fast gathering.

Standing beside the great bell, he prays awhile, rolling the rosary between his palms and mumbling sacred words. Then he swings back the huge hammer, which hangs beside the bell, and strikes.

Out of the great bell comes a deep, mellow sound, spreading over the temple yard and the city beyond. There is an indescribable feeling of loneliness in that sound. It makes one think of the soul that must leave its earthly confinement and lose itself in the vastness of the Great Beyond. It calls forth the vision of the people who have heard it in the days that are no more — millions and millions of men who stood on the long, long road of yesterdays, listening, praying, and then passing away.

This is the picture and sentiment the poem brings to us. Here is another: —

A hot summer night. Dusty and sultry — people out on the verandah, fanning themselves furiously, praying for a breath of cool wind. Suddenly clouds blacken the sky and a shower beats upon the forest, of tall bamboo trees. In a while, the shower passes away, and the moon comes to shine in double splendor. Wind rises, and the raindrops, sliding down the rustling bamboo leaves, patter on the freshened grass. They catch moonlight as they fall, and seem like a shower of moonbeams.

This may seem a strange way to interpret poetry, but then, this is what we usually do, and must do, in order to have full enjoyment of good poems. Suppose we are reading ‘The Last Rose of Summer.”The immediate picture presented before us is that of a single rose; but, if we see only the solitary rose that meditates in the waning light of late summer, our enjoyment of the poem will not be complete. We must go back to the time when other roses were in bloom. Yes, we must go back even to the time when these roses were mere promise. Hundreds and hundreds of roses swell in the buds; and then, bursting into blooms, shimmer in the sun, dance in the wind, and dream in the moonlight. Then they fall away, one by one, leaving this solitary rose to dream of the days when they were all together. It is only after seeing these pictures that we can have full understanding of the beautiful sentiment expressed in this poem.

Japanese poetry, then, is like the song of a wild bird. It is simple and short and seemingly artless; but behind it lies the mystic world where all our dreams come true. It is true that the dreams we build out of the poems at times differ from those of the Japanese. Instead of the shadowy canyon, where moonbeams trickle through the waving fingers of maple leaves and break in the mossy stream, we may see the sunlight that shimmers on the dewy apple blossoms. But if we study the life and ideals of the Japanese, and try to look at things from their point of view and to love and feel nature as they do, we shall be able to complete in the right way the part of the picture that is left unpainted by the poets of Japan.