Page:The Spirit of Japanese Poetry (Noguchi).djvu/82

78 lines, of course with a variation of Japanese morality:

Yamato-Take subdued and pacified all the East; now reaching the moor of Yagi on the way home, he suddenly felt weak and exclaimed: “Whereas my heart always felt like flying through the sky, my legs are now unable to walk; they have become rudder-shaped.” Again at the village of Mike he exclaimed: “My legs are like threefold crooks, and very very weary.”

Then he pulled his tired body to the Moor of Nobo, and from his deep love of his native land, he exclaimed, singing:

And then he passed away, singing:

Such was the last song of this great spirit; when you compare it with the Japanese songs of a later age, you will see that our ancestors,