Old Japanese Songs 



its utterance are supremely simple ; yet by primi- 

 tive devices of reiteration and of pause, very 

 remarkable results have been obtained. What 

 strikes me especially noteworthy in the following 

 specimen is the way that the phrase, begun with 

 the third line of the first stanza, and interrupted 

 by a kind of burthen, is repeated and finished in 

 the next stanza. Perhaps the suspension will 

 recall to Western readers the effect of some 

 English ballads with double refrains, or of such 

 quaint forms of French song as the famous 



Au jardin de mon pe" re 

 Vole, mon cceur, vole ! 



II y a un pommier doux, 

 Tout doux ! 



But in the Japanese song the reiteration of the 

 broken phrase produces a slow dreamy effect as 

 unlike the effect of the French composition as the 

 movements of a Japanese dance are unlike those 

 of any Western round : 



