nese hokku. The concluding
hemistich, whereby the hokku becomes the tanka, is existent in the
writer's mind, but never uttered.

Let us take an example. The most famous hokku that Basho[u] wrote, might
be literally translated thus:

"An old pond
And the sound of a frog leaping
Into the water."

This means nothing to the Western mind. But to the Japanese it means all
the beauty of such a life of retirement and contemplation as Basho[u]
practised. If we permit our minds to supply the detail Basho[u]
deliberately omitted, we see the mouldering temple enclosure, the sage
himself in meditation, the ancient piece of water, and the sound of a
frog's leap--passing vanity--slipping into the silence of eternity. The
poem has three meanings. First it is a statement of fact. Second, it is
an emotion deduced from that. Third, it is a sort of spiritual allegory.
And all this Basho[u] has given us in his seventeen syllables.

All of Basho[u]'s poems have these three meanings. Again and again we
get a sublime suggestion out of some quite commonplace natural fact. For
instance:

"On the mountain-road
There is no flower more beautiful
Than the wild violet."

The wild violet, scentless, growing hidden and neglected among the rocks
of the mountain-road, suggested to Basho[u] the life of the Buddhist
hermit, and thus this poem becomes an exhortation to "shun the world, if
you would be sublime."

I need not give further examples. The reader can now see for himself
what the main object of the hokku poetry is, and what it achieved. Its
object was some universalized emotion derived from a natural fact. Its
achievement was the expression of that emotion in the fewest possible
terms. It is therefore necessary, if poetry in the English tongue is
ever to attain again to the vitality and strength of its beginnings,
that we sit once more at the feet of the Orient and learn from it how
little words can express, how sparingly they should be used, and how
much is contained in the meanest natural object. Shakespeare, who could
close a scene of brooding terror with the words: "But see, the morn in
russet mantle clad, Walks o'er the dew of yon high eastern hill" was
nearer to the oriental spirit than we are. We have lost Shakespeare's
instinct for nature and for fresh individual vision, and we are
unwilling to acquire it through self-discipline. If we do not want art
to disappear under the froth of shallow egotism, we mus