Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, PENRHYN'S PILGRIMAGE: CANTO FIRST: 2. FIRST GLIMPSES OF JAPAN, by ARTHUR PETERSON


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

PENRHYN'S PILGRIMAGE: CANTO FIRST: 2. FIRST GLIMPSES OF JAPAN, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Westward her course our vessel steams
Last Line: And view that mount for beauty famed.
Subject(s): Japan; Japanese


1

Westward her course our vessel steams
Until we reach, at last, the East;
I wake at dawn, my soul to feast
On land before seen but in dreams.

Hail to thee, beautiful Japan!
Before my ocean-wearied eyes
Kadzusa's wooded hills now rise,
And snow-capped dome of Fuji-san.

O sacred peak, when, far at sea,
Thy shape the mariner descries,
Like Bethlehem's host to the shepherds' eyes
Thou shinest, speaking peace to be!

Calm water now; up Yedo Bay
We stand for Yokohama town:
'Twas here the Oneida's men went down,
'Twas there the fleet of Perry lay.

2

Uraga, seven-and-twenty-years
Have passed since on thy harbor's breast
Anchored the squadrons of the West,
And woke the shogun's prescient fears.

No longer, like a knight of old,
Two-sworded, goes the samurai forth;
From west to east, from south to north,
No longer rules the daimio bold.

Gone are the days of old Japan,
When Iyeyasu held the land,
And Iyemitsu's iron hand
Drove out the strangers with a ban.

Changed are the times! For good or ill,
Who knows? God grant 'tis for the best!
But cradled on this blue bay's breast,
Nippon, recluse I dream thee still.

3

For, as from off the magic screen,
An image which our hearts has won,
Cast by the stereopticon,
Fades, and no more by us is seen:

So, swiftly, from the eyes of man,
Have passed away the systems old,
The customs strange, the manners bold,
The life unique, of hoar Japan.

And though we praise, as wise and great,
Those who from Europe's shores have brought
New arts, new arms, new laws, and wrought
From feudal clans, a modern state;

Yet fancy paints, with loving hand,
The splendors of that golden age
When, with fair Yedo for their stage,
The Tokugawas ruled the land.

4

On yonder hill, whose sunny crest
O'erlooks the waves of Yedo Bay,
O'erlooks, and gazes far away,
The ashes of Will Adams rest.

A Briton bold who loved to roam,
He sailed these seas three centuries back,
And on this shore, from storm and wrack
Once resting, found a wife and home.

Ruler of Hemi's village fair,
His people's pride, his sovereign's friend,
He loved thee, Nippon, till life's end,
Nor breathed again far England's air.

An exile's grave, yet who can say
That corse a lovelier couch e'er prest,
Enshrined upon yon mountain's crest,
Above the waves of Yedo Bay.

5

'Tis night -- through Yedo's crowded streets,
In man-drawn kuruma, I fly;
O ne'er from memory's page will die
The scene which now my vision greets!

The shops with paper lanterns lit,
The showman's booth, the shrine of saint,
The black-haired youths in costumes quaint,
The maids demure who past me flit.

Is this a dream? Or do I tread
Some distant planet, new and fair?
Unreal seems this midnight air,
This round moon shining overhead.

'Tis Nippon! 'Tis that once-hidden land
Twin-ruled by warrior and by priest!
'Tis the charmed door-step of the East,
On which my pilgrim feet now stand!

6

Ye sirens of the sea, whose kiss
Aye lures me o'er the billows green,
Say, in your wanderings have you seen
A land more beautiful than this?

Here flows the bright Sumida, here
The plum-tree blooms in early spring,
And, later, cherry-blossoms fling
Their petals o'er the lakelet near.

Here nestles many a hamlet fair
The mountains and the sea between,
And from the level rice-lands green
Rises the white stork into air.

Here, in the cryptomeria grove,
The wooden Shinto temple stands,
Plain as if built by Quaker hands
For orisons to God above.

7

These are the Islands of the Blest,
Fertile and fair the landscape lies,
The winds are hushed along the skies,
The white-winged boats their pinions rest.

Before me spreads the dimpled bay,
Behind me Yedo's peopled plain,
Below me, in the shady lane,
Their games the happy children play.

I hear the music of the harp,
The songs of damosels I hear,
Who sit beside the lakelet clear,
Where dwell the tortoise and the carp.

And far to westward, like the throne
Of one who rules these Blessed Isles,
I see, above the sunset's smiles,
Fuji's incomparable cone.

8

When shows above the ocean green
Each morn the sun's refulgent face,
Straight I betake me to that place
Where sacred Fuji best is seen.

Sometimes unbroken she uprears
The outlines of her peerless cone;
Sometimes her graceful peak alone,
Floating above the clouds, appears.

Sometimes the whirlwinds round her blow,
Hurled by the fiery summer's hands;
Sometimes in winter's garb she stands --
A stately pyramid of snow.

"Fuji-mi taira" have I named,
After the fashion of the land,
This terrace, where each morn I stand
And view that mount for beauty famed.





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