Page:The Spirit of Japanese Poetry (Noguchi).djvu/31

Rh of worldly luxuries. He lived with and in poverty, to use the Japanese phrase, seishin or pure poverty, by whose blessing his single-minded devotion was well rewarded; of course it was the age when material poverty was not a particular inconvenience, as to-day. I read somewhere in his life that he declined in the course of his pilgrimage to accept three ryo (equivalent to seven or eight pounds in the present reckoning), the parting gift by his students, as he was afraid his mind would be disturbed by the thought that his sudden wealth might become an attraction for a thief; oh, what a difference from the modern poets who call for a better payment! He had one of his poetical students at Kaga, by the name of Hokushi, who sent him the following Hokku poem when his house was burned down: It has burned down: How serene the flowers in their falling!” The master Basho wrote to Hokushi, after speaking the words of condolence, that Kyorai and Joshi (his disciples), too, had been struck with admiration by the poem beginning “It has burned down,” and he continued “There was in ancient time a poet who paid his own life as the price of a poem. I do not think that you will take your loss too much to heart when you get such a poem.” When Basho said the above, I believe that his admiration for Hokushi was