Page:Through the torii (IA throughtorii00noguiala).pdf/111

 As we did last spring, so we will do again.

I do not care what history the cherry-blossom may have; what concerns me most here is its real beauty which is the more enhanced by a touch of sadness under the grey bosom of the sky with mists. What a lamentation of the flower when it is suddenly called to the ground by the evening temple bell or sudden rain! Why has she to haste when we all wish her to stay longer? I would like to think that we who come like the cherry-blossom shall go again like it. Our human lives are, indeed, beautiful like that flower, and its sigh under the nights wind is ours. It is quite commonplace to say that the life of a flower is short. But it is most wonderful to observe what a gusty energy is put into that short life of the cherry-blossom; it blooms, true to say, without any care, straight from the right heart of the earth. Rh