Introduction
A quarter of a century has passed since the death of Sachio Ito, and it is interesting to note that he has been a kind of fixed star in the Japanese poetic movement. Coming into prominence at a time when poetry was passing out of the hands of a few aristocratic versifiers into those of the populace, he emphasized, independently of the warfare in opposing camps, certain fundamental elements in the nature of poetry which were in danger of being obscured by the increasing tendency to treat poetry as a social document and to forget that it is an art. Though actively participating in the intellectual and artistic rebirth, Sachio, unlike some of his contemporaries, chose a more critical and a soberer path. There is none of that intellectual insolence and conscious break with tradition in his work which characterized the new poetry. Through a gradual process of synthesis, Sachio took from the past what he needed and could use, and moved forward into the present. It was this distinction that made
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