red and amazed.

--_Miss Toru Dutt._

CHINESE AND JAPANESE POETRY

WHITE ASTER

Epics as they are understood in Europe do not exist in either China or
Japan, although orientals claim that name for poems which we would
term idyls.

A romantic tale, which passes as an epic in both countries, was
written in Chinese verse by Professor Inouye, and has been rendered in
classical Japanese by Naobumi Ochiai. It is entitled "The Lay of the
Pious Maiden Shirakiku," which is The White Aster.

The first canto opens with an exquisite description of an autumn
sunset and of the leaves falling from the trees at the foot of Mount
Aso. Then we hear a temple bell ringing in a distant grove, and see a
timid maiden steal out weeping from a hut in the extremity of the
village to gaze anxiously in the direction of the volcano, for her
father left her three days before to go hunting and has not returned.
Poor little White Aster fears some harm may have befallen her sire,
and, although she creeps back into the hut and kindles a fire to make
tea, her heads turns at every sound in the hope that her father has
come back at last. Stealing out once more only to see wild geese fly
past and the rain-clouds drift across the heavens, White Aster
shudders and feels impelled to start in quest of the missing man. She,
therefore, dons a straw cloak and red bamboo hat, and, although night
will soon fall, steals down the village street, across the marsh, and
begins to climb the mountain.

Here the steep path winds with a swift ascent
Toward the summit:--the long grass that grew
In tufts upon the slopes, shrivelled and dry,
Lay dead upon her path;--hushed was the voice
Of the blithe chafers.--Only sable night
Yawned threatening from the vale.

While she is searching, the rain ceases and the clouds part, but no
trace of her missing father does she find. Light has gone and darkness
has already invaded the solitude, when White Aster descries a faint
red gleam through the trees and hears the droning voice of a priest
chanting his prayers. Going in the direction of light and sound, White
Aster soon approaches a ruined temple, standing in the midst of a
grove of cypress and camphor trees, amid bleached bones and mouldering
graves overhung by weeping-willows.

Her light footfall on the broken steps, falling upon the ear of the
recluse, makes him fancy some demon is coming to tempt him, so seizing
a light he thrusts it out of the do