Page:The Spirit of Japanese Poetry (Noguchi).djvu/57

Rh through mystery of its chosen language as if a sea-crossing wind blown in from a little window. There have been, since the Grand Restoration, a few bold attempts at a Hokku revival, notably that of the late Shiki Masaoka; but it is not my present aim to follow after their historical record. What I hope to do at this moment is to point out to you the very value of the Japanese poetry of this peculiar form.

Arthur Ransome says somewhere in his paper called “Kinetic and Potential Speech”: “It is like a butterfly that has visited flowers and scatters their scent in its flight. The scent and the fluttering of its bloom-laden wings are more important than the direction or speed of its flying.” Such language applies to the Hokku poems at their best. I agree with Ransome in saying: “Poetry is made by a combination of kinetic with potential speech. Eliminate either, and the result is no longer poetry.” But you must know that the part of kinetic speech is left quite unwritten in the Hokku poems, and that kinetic language in your mind should combine its force with the potential speech of the poem itself, and make the whole thing at once complete. Indeed, it is the readers who make the Hokku’s imperfection a perfection of art.