Page:Insect Literature by Lafcadio Hearn.djvu/330

Rh "In the sultry period, feeling oppressed by the greatness of the heat, I made this verse:—

Semi atsushi

Matsu kirabaya to

Omou made.

"But the days passed quickly; and later, when I heard the crying of the semi grow fainter and fainter in the time of the autumn winds, I began to feel compassion for them, and I made this second verse:—

Shini-nokore

Hitotsu bakari wa

Aki no semi."

Lovers of Pierre Loti (the world's greatest prose-writer) may remember in Madame Chrysantheme a delightful passage about a Japanese house,—describing the old dry woodwork as impregnated with sonority by the shrilling crickets of a hundred summers. There is a Japanese poem containing a fancy not altogether dissimilar:— 註