Yone Noguchi

Hokku (1919)

I
Bits of song—what else?
I, a rider of the stream,
Lone between the clouds.

II
Full of faults, you say.
What beauty in repentance!
Tears, songs—thus life flows.

III
But the march to life—
Break song to sing the new song!
Cloud leaps, flowers bloom.

IV
Song of sea in rain,
Voice of the sky, earth and men!
List, song of my heart.

These ‘hokku’ first appeared in Poetry 15 (1919), p. 67.

For notes about Noguchi’s relation with English literaturre see the Bibliography D15, and for a note about Noguchi titles in print see Spirits of Fuji Mountain.