Page:The Spirit of Japanese Poetry (Noguchi).djvu/110

106 would be only his own fault. Some critic said that Mallarmé (Kanbara’s art, which originated in Rossetti, was improved later by Mallarmé and other French poets) was obscure, not so much because he wrote differently, but because he thought differently, from other people; now I should like to say the same thing of Kanbara. He thinks with a strange thought; how many people of Japan could understand Rossetti or Mallarmé? There are so many echoes of them in Kanbara’s poems; but I do not mean to underestimate his worth; in that shade he is worthy and even wonderful.

I have much to say on Homei Iwano. We hear of a poet of promise with youthfulness and a certain amateurish fire, but never reaching to a state of maturity; such a poet is rarely guilty of falsehood or artificiality, but his want of the power of self-analysis is often wonderful. Iwano is one of that class.