which may be literally translated: “May Our Lord’s reign last for a thousand, eight thousand ages, until little stones become rocks and are covered with moss.” A celebrated minister of state who lived a thousand years ago, composed the following:— _Kokoro dani Makoto no michi ni Kanainaba Inorazu totemo Kami ya mamoran._ “If only our hearts follow the path of rectitude, the Gods will protect us without our prayers.” An Emperor saw one day in a private garden a plum-tree with a bush-warbler’s nest in it. He took fancy to it and ordered it to be transplanted to his palace-ground. The owner, who was a poetess and court lady, obeyed as a matter of course, but to show her reluctance, she hung to a branch of the tree a piece of paper with the following ode:— _Choku nareba Itomo kashikoshi Uguisu no Yado wa to towaba Ika ni kotaen._ “Since His Majesty commands, I obey with joy; but when the bush-warbler comes and asks for his home, what answer shall I give?” The Emperor, upon reading this ode, felt sorry that he had deprived her of her favourite tree. There are also other combinations; but all Japanese verses are composed of pentasyllabic and heptasyllabic lines. What is known as the long ode is a series of the two in alternation, closing with an extra heptasyllable. Another verse is formed of a pair of sets, each containing a pentasyllable and two heptasyllables; and still another comprises four couplets of a heptasyllable and a pentasyllable each. From these combinations has been evolved what is called poetry of the new school, which is an indefinite series of five and seven syllables in alternation. It is now very common; and almost all songs written to the accompaniment of European music are in this form. In the following children’s song which has for the last half dozen years been popular in Tokyo, the English reader will recognise a very old friend:— _Moshi moshi kame yo kamesan yo Sekai no uchi ni omae hodo Ayumi no noroi mono wa nai Dōshite sonna ni noroi no ka Nanto ossharu usagisan Sonnara omae to kakekurabe Mukō no oyama no fumoto made Dochira ga saki ni kaketsuku ka Donna ni kame ga isoi demo Dōse ban made kakaru daro Kokora de chotto hito nemuri Gū gū gū gū gū gū gū Kore wa nesugita shikujitta Pyon pyon pyon pyon pyon pyon pyon Anmari osoi usagisan Sakki no jiman wa dōshitano;_ which may be rendered: