during the feudal period, improvising verses became
a pastime in court circles. Some one would utter the first three lines
of a tanka and some one else would cap the composition by adding the
last two. This division persisted. The first hemistich which was
composed of 17 syllables grew to be called the hokku, the second or
finishing hemistich of 14 syllables was called ageku. Thus was born the
form which is more peculiarly Japanese than any other, and which only
they have been able to carry to perfection.

Composing hokku might, however, have remained a mere game of elaborate
literary conceits and double meanings, but for the genius of one man.
This was the great Basho[u] (1644-1694) who may be called certainly the
greatest epigrammatist of any time. During a life of extreme and
voluntary self-denial and wandering, Basho[u] contrived to obtain over a
thousand disciples, and to found a school of hokku writing which has
persisted down to the present day. He reformed the hokku, by introducing
into everything he wrote a deep spiritual significance underlying the
words. He even went so far as to disregard upon occasion the syllabic
rule, and to add extraneous syllables, if thereby he might perfect his
statement. He set his face sternly against impromptus, _poemes
d'occasion_, and the like. The number of his works were not large, and
even these he perpetually sharpened and polished. His influence
persisted for long after his death. A disciple and priest of Zen
Buddhism himself, his work is permeated with the feeling of that
doctrine.

Zen Buddhism, as Basho[u] practised it, may be called religion under the
forms of nature. Everything on earth, from the clouds in the sky to the
pebble by the roadside, has some spiritual or ethical significance for
us. Blake's words describe the aim of the Zen Buddhist as well as any
one's:

"To see a World in a grain of sand,
And a Heaven in a wild flower;
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand,
And Eternity in an hour."

Basho[u] would have subscribed to this as the sole rule of poetry and
imagination. The only difference between the Western and the Eastern
mystic is that where one sees the world in the grain of sand and tells
you all about it, the other sees and lets his silence imply that he
knows its meaning. Or to quote Lao-tzu: "Those who speak do not know,
those who know do not speak." It must always be understood that there is
an implied continuation to every Japa