Page:Things Japanese (1905).djvu/155

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English as she is Japped.
143
say "the sun are never sets on our dominions." The Testamony of English said that he that lost the common sense, he never any benefit though he had gained the complete world. The English are cunning institutioned to establish a great empire of the Paradise. The Englishman always said to the another nation "give me your land and I will give you my Testimony." So it is not a robbed but exchanged as the Englishman always confide the object to be pure and the order to be holy and they reproach him if any them are killed to death with the contention of other man. (I shall continue the other time.)

The young essayist hits us rather hard—doesn't he?—when he drags into the garish light of day our little foible for giving a "Testimony" in exchange for "the another nation's land."

A writer, who prefixes an English preface to an interesting "Collection of Registered Trade Marks," observes that The society in nineteenth century is always going to be civiliged, and so all things are also improved. The muse of course ranking among "civiliging" influences, a little volume has been published at Tōkyō with the object of inducting the Far-Eastern mind into the mysteries of English verse. It is entitled New of Pom and Song the English and Japanese. Occasionally Japanese youths themselves, like Silas Wegg, "drop into poetry."

The Midnight Winds.

At the midnight—my own darkness alone; none but God and myself!
A conscious slumber muffled the universe,
Palpitating on the lonely bed like a chilly sea in the misty dawn.
Be hunting (Oh) by the black boneless winds.
With the sewed eyes and the wild, weird, full-opened soul,
I'm reviewing the sheeted memories of past under an inky light;
Until—alas, the strange giant of winds inclosed about my breathless cabin:—
God made a night, a midnight for me alone!
Oh, our matchless God! If the wizard rout
Flit in through the broken window for a lady-moon welcomed!
Ever a gentle violet upturns her eye:
Ever a radiant rose polish her thorns against.
I have such of none, but a withered, colorless soul!

The latter part of this poem is somewhat discursive; but the radiant rose polishing her thorns against a full stop is a genuine