Page:The Spirit of Japanese Art, by Yone Noguchi; 1915.djvu/24

Rh allured my mind back, perhaps, to Koyetsu's age of four hundred years ago—to imagine myself to be a waif of greyness like a famous tea-master, Rikiu or Enshu or, again, Koyetsu, burying me in a little Abode of Fancy with a boiling tea-kettle; through that smoke of candles hurrying like our ephemeral lives, the characters of Koyetsu's writing loomed with the haunting charm of a ghost. They say:

"Where's cherry-blossom? The trace of the garden's spring breeze is seen no more. I will point, if I am asked, To my fancy snow upon the ground."

"What a yearning of poetical soul!" I exclaimed.

It is your imagination to make rise out of fall, day out of darkness, and Life out of Death; not to see the fact of scattering petals is your virtue, and to create your own special sensation with the impulse of art is your poet's dignity; what a blessing if you can tell a lie to yourself; better still, not to draw a distinct line between the things our plebeian minds call truth and untruth, and live like a wreath shell with the cover shut in the air of your own creation. Praised be the touch of your newly awakened soul which can turn the fallen petals to the beauty of snow; there is nothing that will deny the yearning of your poetic soul. It is not superstition to say that the poet's life is worthier than any other life. Some time ago the word loneliness impressed