Page:Through the torii (IA throughtorii00noguiala).pdf/157

 certainly that the English mind is differently rooted from the Japanese mind, even in the matter of poetry which is said to have no East or West. When I appear to unkindly expose Mr. Porter’s defects (excuse my careless use of word) to the light, that is from my anxiety to make this Japanese poetry properly understood. To take a poem or two from his book at random:

Mr. Porter translates it as follows:

I should like to know who would ever think of the above as poetry, even poor poetry, in his reading of it in one breath; what does “no doubt” (which the original hasn’t) mean except that it rhymes with the first line; and the rhyme cheapens the poetry at least to the Japanese mind from the reason of its English conventionality. The first line of the original is not “my Rh