100 Shadowings 



Tamashii wa 

 Ukiyo ni naite, 

 Semi no kara. 



Here the forsaken shell : above me the voice of the creature 

 Shrills like the cry of a Soul quitting this world of pain. 



Then the great sun-quickened tumult of the 

 cicadx landstorm of summer life foredoomed 

 so soon to pass away is likened by preacher 

 and poet to the tumult of human desire. Even 

 as the semi rise from earth, and climb to warmth 

 and light, and clamor, and presently again return 

 to dust and silence, so rise and clamor and 

 pass the generations of men : 



Yagat shinu 

 Keshiki wa mie'zu, 



Smi no koe. 



BASHO. 



Never an intimation in all those voices of se'mi 

 How quickly the hush will come, how speedily all must 

 die. 



I wonder whether the thought in this little 

 verse does not interpret something of that sum 

 mer melancholy which comes to us out of 

 nature's solitudes with the plaint of insect- voices. 

 Unconsciously those millions of millions of tiny 

 beings are preaching the ancient wisdom of the 

 East, the perpetual Sutra of Impermanency. 



