say that he would be better off; his strength is, after all, his weakness.
We have two other interesting poets of modern Japan in Ariake Kanbara and Homei Iwano.
III
It seems to me that Ariake Kanbara had been wandering in the labyrinth of experiment (how he loved that wandering), not knowing exactly where he would come out; he has much enthusiasm; his sensitive mind made his poetical ambition quick to flame up over a new thing. His travelling guide or companion was Rossetti at first, when he strove to hold the vision and romance of his own kingdom of music and love, his eternal land of imagination and youth:
“I stand alone, and I hear
The whisper sad,–
’Tis Heaven’s whisper over the far-away sea,
Which the white sunbeams spoke.
“The voice is lone but clear,
Quiet but bright,
I can never know the whisper of the far-away sea,
The whisper of the shining sky.”
I have been thinking sometimes that he had a false start in his poetical work; it is true that he needed somebody to support him when he could not walk by himself; but even at the time when he was perfectly able to manage himself, his face still turned instinctively toward his original help. We read many reflections and
