as left alone;

Left alone--too late! too late!
He gapes at the vacant air,
He shouts, and he yells, and gnashes his teeth,
And dances in wild despair.

"But no! I'll not yield!" he fiercely cries,
"I'm as good a man as he!"
And girding his poniard, he follows after,
To search out his enemy.

The kinsmen then, on either side,
In solemn conclave met,
As a token forever and evermore--
Some monument for to set,

That the story might pass from mouth to mouth,
While heav'n and earth shall stand;
So they laid the maiden in the midst,
And the champions on either hand.

And I, when I hear the mournful tale,
I melt into bitter tears,
As though these lovers I never saw
Had been mine own compeers.

_Mushimaro_.

THE GRAVE OF THE MAIDEN OF UNAHI

I stand by the grave where they buried
The Maiden of Unahi,
Whom of old the rival champions
Did woo so jealously.

The grave should hand down through ages
Her story for evermore,
That men yet unborn might love her,
And think on the days of yore.

And so beside the causeway
They piled up the bowlders high;
Nor e'er till the clouds that o'ershadow us
Shall vanish from the sky,

May the pilgrim along the causeway
Forget to turn aside,
And mourn o'er the grave of the Maiden;
And the village folk, beside,

Ne'er cease from their bitter weeping,
But cluster around her tomb;
And the ages repeat her story,
And bewail the Maiden's doom.

Till at last e'en I stand gazing
On the grave where she now lies low,
And muse with unspeakable sadness
On the old days long ago.

_Sakimaro_.

[Note.--The existence of the Maiden of Unahi is not doubted by any of
the native authorities, and, as usual, the tomb is there (or said to
be there, for the present writer's search for it on the occasion of a
somewhat hurried visit to that part of the country was vain) to attest
the truth of the tradition. Ashinoya is the name of the village, and
Unahi of the district. The locality is in the province of Setsutsu,
between the present treaty ports of Kobe and Osaka.]

THE MAIDEN OF KATSUSHIKA

Where in the far-off eastern land
The cock first crows at dawn,
The people still hand down a tale
Of days long dead and gone.

They tell of Katsushika's maid,
Whose sash of country b