Mae St. John Bramhall

The Japanese “Good-Day” (1897)

A FALL to the knees,
A turn to the toes,
A spread of the hands,
And a dip of the nose.
It takes all these just to say, “Good-day,”
In Chrysanthemum-land, so far away.

Mae St. John Bramhall (active 1891-1897) was author of children’s verses written in and usually set in Japan. These appeared in the Japan Gazette and in the collections Japanese Jingles (Tokyo: Hasegawa, 1891, reprinted twice before 1900) and The Wee Ones of Japan (New York: Harper, 1894). ‘The Japanese “Good-Day”’ appeared in Mary Mapes Dodge’s children’s magazine St. Nicholas 24 (Jan. 1897), p. 252.