Page:A handbook of modern Japan (IA handbookofmodern01clem).pdf/263

Rh following is a specimen of such an uta, or tanka, from the famous "Hundred Poems":— There is also an abbreviated form called hokku, which contains only the 17 syllables of the first 3 lines of the tanka. The following is an example:—

"On an autumn evening a crow perches on a withered branch."

The quaintness and simplicity of Japanese thought and expression appear very clearly in their poetry. It has been truly said that a Japanese poem is a picture or even only the outline of a picture to be filled in by the imagination. It may be merely an exclamation, without any logical assertion, like the following, written a thousand years ago:—