t the English universities beautiful
work has been done in Greek or Latin--in poems of a single line, of two
lines, of three lines and other very brief measures. Why can it not be
done in English? I suspect that it is because our English language has not
yet become sufficiently perfect, sufficiently flexible, sufficiently
melodious to allow of great effect with a very few words. We can do the
thing in Greek or in Latin because either Greek or Latin is a more perfect
language.

So much for theory. I should like to suggest, however, that it is very
probable many attempts at these difficult forms of poetry will be
attempted by English poets within the next few years. There is now a
tendency in that direction. I do not know whether such attempts will be
successful; but I should like you to understand that for Western poets
they are extremely difficult and that you ought to obtain from the
recognition of this fact a new sense of the real value of your own short
forms of verse in the hands of a master. Effects can be produced in
Japanese which the Greeks could produce with few syllables, but which the
English can not. Now it strikes me that, instead of even thinking of
throwing away old forms of verse in order to invent new ones, the future
Japanese poets ought rather to develop and cultivate and prize the forms
already existing, which belong to the genius of the language, and which
have proved themselves capable of much that no English verse or even
French verse could accomplish. Perhaps only the Italian is really
comparable to Japanese in some respects; you can perform miracles with
Italian verse.

CHAPTER V

SOME FOREIGN POEMS ON JAPANESE SUBJECTS

The Western poet and writer of romance has exactly the same kind of
difficulty in comprehending Eastern subjects as you have in comprehending
Western subjects. You will commonly find references to Japanese love poems
of the popular kind made in such a way as to indicate the writer's belief
that such poems refer to married life or at least to a courtship relation.
No Western writer who has not lived for many years in the East, could
write correctly about anything on this subject; and even after a long stay
in the country he might be unable to understand. Therefore a great deal of
Western poetry written about Japan must seem to you all wrong, and I can
not hope to offer you many specimens of work in this direction that could
deserve your praise. Yet there is some poetr