First flower of the year, braving the bleak winds, and even the snow, as early as January, what more courageous? And with trunk and branches hoary and grey (pure silver in the sunlight), and every year the returning bloom—a true type of Japan, with the new hopes and promise on the old rugged stock. The people who venerate age love the Plum for its beauty of crooked bough and ancient trunk, as much as for the frail promise of spring in its bloom; and I, who am half a Japanese in this, can sympathize with those who nip off the buds, so that the exquisite lines of stem and branch may not be lost with overweight of fragrant flowers.
It is a tragedy when the petals begin to fall. “Alas, that spring should vanish with the Rose.” There is a story told of a famous poet and courtier of the Fujiwara family, named Saigyo, who, in driving away a bird that with its fluttering wings was scattering the Plum blossoms, killed it. When he reached home his wife told him that she had dreamed that she was changed into a bird, and that he had struck her. It made such an impression on his mind that he retired from Court, and from attendance on the Emperor, and became a monk.
I love the soldier who, the good Rein tells us,—Kajiwara Genda Kagesugi was his fine, big-mouthed name,—went into battle in the fierce days of the twelfth century with fresh branches of Ume in his quiver, and I do not
